In country districts, where life is quiet, incidents do duty as events;
and accordingly Captain Severn's sudden departure for his regiment
became very rapidly known among Gertrude's neighbors. She herself heard
it from her coachman, who had heard it in the village, where the Captain
had been seen to take the early train. She received the news calmly
enough to outward appearance, but a great tumult rose and died in her
breast. He had gone without a word of farewell! Perhaps he had not had
time to call upon her. But bare civility would have dictated his
dropping her a line of writing,--he who must have read in her eyes the
feeling which her lips refused to utter, and who had been the object of
her tenderest courtesy. It was not often that Gertrude threw back into
her friends' teeth their acceptance of the hospitality which it had been
placed in her power to offer them; but if she now mutely reproached
Captain Severn with ingratitude, it was because he had done more than
slight her material gifts: he had slighted that constant moral force
with which these gifts were accompanied, and of which they were but the
rude and vulgar token. It is but natural to expect that our dearest
friends will accredit us with our deepest feelings; and Gertrude had
constituted Edmund Severn her dearest friend. She had not, indeed, asked
his assent to this arrangement, but she had borne it out by a subtile
devotion which she felt that she had a right to exact of him that he
should repay,--repay by letting her know that, whether it was lost on
his heart or not, it was at least not lost to his senses,--that, if he
could not return it, he could at least remember it. She had given him
the flower of her womanly tenderness, and when his moment came, he had
turned from her without a look. Gertrude shed no tears. It seemed to her
that she had given her friend tears enough, and that to expend her soul
in weeping would be to wrong herself. She would think no more of Edmund
Severn. He should be as little to her for the future as she was to him.
It was very easy to make this resolution: to keep it, Gertrude found
another matter. She could not think of the war, she could not talk with
her neighbors of current events, she could not take up a newspaper,
without reverting to her absent friend. She found herself constantly
harassed with the apprehension that he had not allowed himself time
really to recover, and that a fortnight's exposure would send him back
to the hospital. At last it occurred to her that civility required that
she should make a call upon Mrs. Martin, the Captain's sister; and a
vague impression that this lady might be the depositary of some farewell
message--perhaps of a letter--which she was awaiting her convenience to
present, led her at once to undertake this social duty.
The carriage which had been ordered for her projected visit was at the
door, when, within a week after Severn's departure, Major Luttrel was
announced. Gertrude received him in her bonnet. His first care was to
present Captain Severn's adieus, together with his regrets that he had
not had time to discharge them in person. As Luttrel made his speech, he
watched his companion narrowly, and was considerably reassured by the
unflinching composure with which she listened to it. The turn he had
given to Severn's message had been the fruit of much mischievous
cogitation. It had seemed to him that, for his purposes, the assumption
of a hasty, and as it were mechanical, allusion to Miss Whittaker, was
more serviceable than the assumption of no allusion at all, which would
have left a boundless void for the exercise of Gertrude's fancy. And he
had reasoned well; for although he was tempted to infer from her
calmness that his shot had fallen short of the mark, yet, in spite of
her silent and almost smiling assent to his words, it had made but one
bound to her heart. Before many minutes, she felt that those words had
done her a world of good. "He had not had time!" Indeed, as she took to
herself their full expression of perfect indifference, she felt that her
hard, forced smile was broadening into the sign of a lively gratitude to
the Major.
Major Luttrel had still another task to perform. He had spent half an
hour on the preceding day at Richards bedside, having ridden over to the
farm, in ignorance of his illness, to see how matters stood with him.
The reader will already have surmised that the Major was not
pre-eminently a man of conscience: he will, therefore, be the less
surprised and shocked to hear that the sight of the poor young man,
prostrate, fevered, and delirious, and to all appearance rapidly growing
worse, filled him with an emotion the reverse of creditable. In plain
terms, he was very glad to find Richard a prisoner in bed. He had been
racking his brains for a scheme to keep his young friend out of the way,
and now, to his exceeding satisfaction, Nature had relieved him of this
troublesome care. If Richard was condemned to typhoid fever, which his
symptoms seemed to indicate, he would not, granting his recovery, be
able to leave his room within a month. In a month, much might be done;
nay, with energy, all might be done. The reader has been all but
directly informed that the Major's present purpose was to secure Miss
Whittaker's hand. He was poor, and he was ambitious, and he was,
moreover, so well advanced in life--being thirty-six years of age--that
he had no heart to think of building up his fortune by slow degrees. A
man of good breeding, too, he had become sensible, as he approached
middle age of the many advantages of a luxurious home. He had
accordingly decided that a wealthy marriage would most easily unlock the
gate to prosperity. A girl of a somewhat lighter calibre than Gertrude
would have been the woman--we cannot say of his heart; but, as he very
generously argued, beggars can't be choosers. Gertrude was a woman with
a mind of her own; but, on the whole, he was not afraid of her. He was
abundantly prepared to do his duty. He had, of course, as became a man
of sense, duly weighed his obstacles against his advantages; but an
impartial scrutiny had found the latter heavier in the balance. The only
serious difficulty in his path was the possibility that, on hearing of
Richard's illness, Gertrude, with her confounded benevolence, would take
a fancy to nurse him in person, and that, in the course of her
ministrations, his delirious ramblings would force upon her mind the
damning story of the deception practised upon Captain Severn. There was
nothing for it but bravely to face this risk. As for that other fact,
which many men of a feebler spirit would have deemed an invincible
obstacle, Luttrel's masterly understanding had immediately converted it
into the prime agent of success,--the fact, namely, that Gertrude's
heart was preoccupied. Such knowledge as he possessed of the relations
between Miss Whittaker and his brother officer he had gained by his
unaided observations and his silent deductions. These had been logical;
for, on the whole, his knowledge was accurate. It was at least what he
might have termed a good working knowledge. He had calculated on a
passionate reactionary impulse on Gertrude's part, consequent on
Severn's simulated offence. He knew that, in a generous woman, such an
impulse, if left to itself, would not go very far. But on this point it
was that his policy bore. He would not leave it to itself: he would take
it gently into his hands, attenuate it, prolong it, economize it, and
mould it into the clew to his own good-fortune. He thus counted much
upon his skill and his tact; but he likewise placed a becoming degree of
reliance upon his solid personal qualities,--qualities too sober and too
solid, perhaps, to be called _charms_, but thoroughly adapted to inspire
confidence. The Major was not handsome in feature; he left that to
younger men and to lighter women; but his ugliness was of a masculine,
aristocratic, intelligent stamp. His figure, moreover, was good enough
to compensate for the absence of a straight nose and a fine mouth; and
his general bearing offered a most pleasing combination of the gravity
of the man of affairs and the versatility of the man of society.
In her sudden anxiety on Richard's behalf, Gertrude soon forgot her own
immaterial woes. The carriage which was to have conveyed her to Mrs.
Martin's was used for a more disinterested purpose. The Major, prompted
by a strong faith in the salutary force of his own presence, having
obtained her permission to accompany her, they set out for the farm, and
soon found themselves in Richard's chamber. The young man was wrapped in
a heavy sleep, from which it was judged imprudent to arouse him.
Gertrude, sighing as she compared his thinly furnished room with her own
elaborate apartments, drew up a mental list of essential luxuries which
she would immediately send him. Not but that he had received, however, a
sufficiency of homely care. The doctor was assiduous, and the old woman
who nursed him was full of rough good-sense.
"He asks very often after you, Miss," she said, addressing Gertrude, but
with a sly glance at the Major. "But I think you'd better not come too
often. I'm afraid you'd excite him more than you'd quiet him."
"I'm afraid you would, Miss Whittaker," said the Major, who could have
hugged the goodwife.
"Why should I excite him?" asked Gertrude, "I'm used to sick-rooms. I
nursed my father for a year and a half."
"O, it's very well for an old woman like me, but it's no place for a
fine young lady like you," said the nurse, looking at Gertrude's muslins
and laces.
"I'm not so fine as to desert a friend in distress," said Gertrude. "I
shall come again, and if it makes the poor fellow worse to see me, I
shall stay away. I am ready to do anything that will help him to get
well."
It had already occurred to her that, in his unnatural state, Richard
might find her presence a source of irritation, and she was prepared to
remain in the background. As she returned to her carriage, she caught
herself reflecting with so much pleasure upon Major Luttrel's kindness
in expending a couple of hours of his valuable time on so unprofitable
an object as poor Richard, that, by way of intimating her satisfaction,
she invited him to come home and dine with her.
After a short interval she paid Richard a second visit, in company with
Miss Pendexter. He was a great deal worse; he lay emaciated, exhausted,
and stupid. The issue was doubtful. Gertrude immediately pushed forward
to M----, a larger town than her own, sought out a professional nurse,
and arranged with him to relieve the old woman from the farm, who was
worn out with her vigilance. For a fortnight, moreover, she received
constant tidings from the young man's physician. During this fortnight,
Major Luttrel was assiduous, and proportionately successful.
It may be said, to his credit, that he had by no means conducted his
suit upon that narrow programme which he had drawn up at the outset. He
very soon discovered that Gertrude's resentment--if resentment there
was--was a substance utterly impalpable even to his most delicate tact,
and he had accordingly set to work to woo her like an honest man, from
day to day, from hour to hour, trusting so devoutly for success to
momentary inspiration, that he felt his suit dignified by a certain
flattering _faux air_ of genuine passion. He occasionally reminded
himself, however, that he might really be owing more to the subtle force
of accidental contrast than Gertrude's life-long reserve--for it was
certain she would not depart from it--would ever allow him to measure.
It was as an honest man, then, a man of impulse and of action, that
Gertrude had begun to like him. She was not slow to perceive whither his
operations tended; and she was almost tempted at times to tell him
frankly that she would spare him the intermediate steps, and meet him at
the goal without further delay. It was not that she was prepared to love
him, but she would make him an obedient wife. An immense weariness had
somehow come upon her, and a sudden sense of loneliness. A vague
suspicion that her money had done her an incurable wrong inspired her
with a profound distaste for the care of it. She felt cruelly hedged out
from human sympathy by her bristling possessions. "If I had had five
hundred dollars a year," she said in a frequent parenthesis, "I might
have pleased him." Hating her wealth, accordingly, and chilled by her
isolation, the temptation was strong upon her to give herself up to that
wise, brave gentleman who seemed to have adopted such a happy medium
betwixt loving her for her money and fearing her for it. Would she not
always stand between men who would represent the two extremes? She would
anticipate security by an alliance with Major Luttrel.
One evening, on presenting himself, Luttrel read these thoughts so
clearly in her eyes, that he made up his mind to speak. But his mind was
burdened with a couple of facts, of which it was necessary that he
should discharge it before it could enjoy the freedom of action which
the occasion required. In the first place, then, he had been to see
Richard Clare, and had found him suddenly and decidedly better. It was
unbecoming, however,--it was impossible,--that he should allow Gertrude
to linger over this pleasant announcement.
"I tell the good news first," he said, gravely. "I have some very bad
news, too, Miss Whittaker."
Gertrude sent him a rapid glance. "Some one has been killed," she said.
"Captain Severn has been shot," said the Major,--"shot by a guerilla."
Gertrude was silent. No answer seemed possible to that uncompromising
fact. She sat with her head on her hand, and her elbow on the table
beside her, looking at the figures on the carpet. She uttered no words
of commonplace regret; but she felt as little like giving way to serious
grief. She had lost nothing, and, to the best of her knowledge, _he_ had
lost nothing. She had an old loss to mourn,--a loss a month old, which
she had mourned as she might. To give way to passion would have been but
to impugn the solemnity of her past regrets. When she looked up at her
companion, she was pale, but she was calm, yet with a calmness upon
which a single glance of her eye directed him not inconsiderately to
presume. She was aware that this glance betrayed her secret; but in view
both of Severn's death and of the Major's attitude, such betrayal
mattered less. Luttrel had prepared to act upon her hint, and to avert
himself gently from the topic, when Gertrude, who had dropped her eyes
again, raised them with a slight shudder. "I'm cold," she said. "Will
you shut that window beside you, Major? Or stay, suppose you give me my
shawl from the sofa."
Luttrel brought the shawl, placed it on her shoulders, and sat down
beside her. "These are cruel times," he said, with studied simplicity.
"I'm sure I hardly know what's to come of it all."
"Yes, they are cruel times," said Gertrude. "They make one feel cruel.
They make one doubt of all he has learnt from his pastors and masters."
"Yes, but they teach us something new also."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Gertrude, whose heart was so full of
bitterness that she felt almost malignant. "They teach us how mean we
are. War is an infamy, Major, though it is your trade. It's very well
for you, who look at it professionally, and for those who go and fight;
but it's a miserable business for those who stay at home, and do the
thinking and the sentimentalizing. It's a miserable business for women;
it makes us more spiteful than ever."
"Well, a little spite isn't a bad thing, in practice," said the Major.
"War is certainly an abomination, both at home and in the field. But as
wars go, Miss Whittaker, our own is a very satisfactory one. It involves
something. It won't leave us as it found us. We're in the midst of a
revolution, and what's a revolution but a turning upside down? It makes
sad work with our habits and theories and our traditions and
convictions. But, on the other hand," Luttrel pursued, warming to his
task, "it leaves something untouched, which is better than these,--I
mean our feelings, Miss Whittaker." And the Major paused until he had
caught Gertrude's eyes, when, having engaged them with his own, he
proceeded. "I think they are the stronger for the downfall of so much
else, and, upon my soul, I think it's in them we ought to take refuge.
Don't you think so?"
"Yes, if I understand you."
"I mean our serious feelings, you know,--not our tastes nor our
passions. I don't advocate fiddling while Rome is burning. In fact it's
only poor, unsatisfied devils that are tempted to fiddle. There is one
feeling which is respectable and honorable, and even sacred, at all
times and in all places, whatever they may be. It doesn't depend upon
circumstances, but they upon it; and with its help, I think, we are a
match for any circumstances. I don't mean religion, Miss Whittaker,"
added the Major, with a sober smile.
"If you don't mean religion," said Gertrude, "I suppose you mean love.
That's a very different thing."
"Yes, a very different thing; so I've always thought, and so I'm glad to
hear you say. Some people, you know, mix them up in the most
extraordinary fashion. I don't fancy myself an especially religious man;
in fact, I believe I'm rather otherwise. It's my nature. Half mankind
are born so, or I suppose the affairs of this world wouldn't move. But I
believe I'm a good lover, Miss Whittaker."
"I hope for your own sake you are, Major Luttrel."
"Thank you. Do you think now you could entertain the idea for the sake
of any one else?"
Gertrude neither dropped her eyes, nor shrugged her shoulders, nor
blushed. If anything, indeed, she turned somewhat paler than before, as
she sustained her companion's gaze, and prepared to answer him as
directly as she might.
"If I loved you, Major Luttrel," she said, "I should value the idea for
my own sake."
The Major, too, blanched a little. "I put my question conditionally," he
answered, "and I have got, as I deserved, a conditional reply. I will
speak plainly, then, Miss Whittaker. _Do_ you value the fact for your
own sake? It would be plainer still to say, Do you love me? but I
confess I'm not brave enough for that. I will say, Can you? or I will
even content myself with putting it in the conditional again, and asking
you if you could; although, after all, I hardly know what the _if_
understood can reasonably refer to. I'm not such a fool as to ask of any
woman--least of all of you--to love me contingently. You can only answer
for the present, and say yes or no. I shouldn't trouble you to say
either, if I didn't conceive that I had given you time to make up your
mind. It doesn't take forever to know James Luttrel. I'm not one of the
great unfathomable ones. We've seen each other more or less intimately
for a good many weeks; and as I'm conscious, Miss Whittaker, of having
shown you my best, I take it for granted that if you don't fancy me now,
you won't a month hence, when you shall have seen my faults. Yes, Miss
Whittaker, I can solemnly say," continued the Major, with genuine
feeling, "I have shown you my best, as every man is in honor bound to do
who approaches a woman with those predispositions with which I have
approached you. I have striven hard to please you,"--and he paused. "I
can only say, I hope I have succeeded."
"I should be very insensible," said Gertrude, "if all your kindness and
your courtesy had been lost upon me."
"In Heaven's name, don't talk about courtesy," cried the Major.
"I am deeply conscious of your devotion, and I am very much obliged to
you for urging your claims so respectfully and considerately. I speak
seriously, Major Luttrel," pursued Gertrude. "There is a happy medium of
expression, and you have taken it. Now it seems to me that there is a
happy medium of affection, with which you might be content. Strictly, I
don't love you. I question my heart, and it gives me that answer. The
feeling that I have is not a feeling to work prodigies."
"May it at least work the prodigy of allowing you to be my wife?"
"I don't think I shall over-estimate its strength, if I say that it may.
If you can respect a woman who gives you her hand in cold blood, you are
welcome to mine."
Luttrel moved his chair and took her hand. "Beggars can't be choosers,"
said he, raising it to his mustache.
"O Major Luttrel, don't say that," she answered. "I give you a great
deal; but I keep a little,--a little," said Gertrude, hesitating, "which
I suppose I shall give to God."
"Well, I shall not be jealous," said Luttrel.
"The rest I give to you, and in return I ask a great deal."
"I shall give you all. You know I told you I'm not religious."
"No, I don't want more than I give," said Gertrude.
"But, pray," asked Luttrel, with a delicate smile, "what am I to do with
the difference?"
"You had better keep it for yourself. What I want is your protection,
sir, and your advice, and your care. I want you to take me away from
this place, even if you have to take me down to the army. I want to see
the world under the shelter of your name. I shall give you a great deal
of trouble. I'm a mere mass of possessions: what I am, is nothing to
what I have. But ever since I began to grow up, what I am has been the
slave of what I have. I am weary of my chains, and you must help me to
carry them,"--and Gertrude rose to her feet as if to inform the Major
that his audience was at an end.
He still held her right hand; she gave him the other. He stood looking
down at her, an image of manly humility, while from his silent breast
went out a brief thanksgiving to favoring fortune.
At the pressure of his hands, Gertrude felt her bosom heave. She burst
into tears. "O, you must be very kind to me!" she cried, as he put his
arm about her, and she dropped her head upon his shoulder.
When once Richard's health had taken a turn for the better, it began
very rapidly to improve. "Until he is quite well," Gertrude said, one
day, to her accepted suitor, "I had rather he heard nothing of our
engagement. He was once in love with me himself," she added, very
frankly. "Did you ever suspect it? But I hope he will have got better of
that sad malady, too. Nevertheless, I shall expect nothing of his good
judgment until he is quite strong; and as he may hear of my new
intentions from other people, I propose that, for the present, we
confide them to no one."
"But if he asks me point-blank," said the Major, "what shall I answer?"
"It's not likely he'll ask you. How should he suspect anything?"
"O," said Luttrel, "Clare is one that suspects everything."
"Tell him we're not engaged, then. A woman in my position may say what
she pleases."
It was agreed, however, that certain preparations for the marriage
should meanwhile go forward in secret; and that the marriage itself
should take place in August, as Luttrel expected to be ordered back into
service in the autumn. At about this moment Gertrude was surprised to
receive a short note from Richard, so feebly scrawled in pencil as to be
barely legible. "Dear Gertrude," it ran, "don't come to see me just yet.
I'm not fit. You would hurt me, and _vice versa_. God bless you! R.
CLARE." Miss Whittaker explained his request, by the supposition that a
report had come to him of Major Luttrel's late assiduities (which it was
impossible should go unobserved); that, leaping at the worst, he had
taken her engagement for granted; and that, under this impression, he
could not trust himself to see her. She despatched him an answer,
telling him that she would await his pleasure, and that, if the doctor
would consent to his having letters, she would meanwhile occasionally
write to him. "She will give me good advice," thought Richard
impatiently; and on this point, accordingly, she received no account of
his wishes. Expecting to leave her house and close it on her marriage,
she spent many hours in wandering sadly over the meadow-paths and
through the woodlands which she had known from her childhood. She had
thrown aside the last ensigns of filial regret, and now walked sad and
splendid in the uncompromising colors of an affianced bride. It would
have seemed to a stranger that, for a woman who had freely chosen a
companion for life, she was amazingly spiritless and sombre. As she
looked at her pale cheeks and heavy eyes in the mirror, she felt ashamed
that she had no fairer countenance to offer to her destined lord. She
had lost her single beauty, her smile; and she would make but a ghastly
figure at the altar. "I ought to wear a calico dress and an apron," she
said to herself, "and not this glaring finery." But she continued to
wear her finery, and to lay out her money, and to perform all her old
duties to the letter. After the lapse of what she deemed a sufficient
interval, she went to see Mrs. Martin, and to listen dumbly to her
narration of her brother's death, and to her simple eulogies.
Major Luttrel performed his part quite as bravely, and much more
successfully. He observed neither too many things nor too few; he
neither presumed upon his success, nor mistrusted it. Having on his side
received no prohibition from Richard, he resumed his visits at the farm,
trusting that, with the return of reason, his young friend might feel
disposed to renew that anomalous alliance in which, on the hapless
evening of Captain Severn's farewell, he had taken refuge against his
despair. In the long, languid hours of his early convalescence, Richard
had found time to survey his position, to summon back piece by piece the
immediate past, and to frame a general scheme for the future. But more
vividly than anything else, there had finally disengaged itself from his
meditations a profound aversion to James Luttrel.
It was in this humor that the Major found him; and as he looked at the
young man's gaunt shoulders, supported by pillows, at his face, so livid
and aquiline, at his great dark eyes, luminous with triumphant life, it
seemed to him that an invincible spirit had been sent from a better
world to breathe confusion upon his hopes. If Richard hated the Major,
the reader may guess whether the Major loved Richard. Luttrel was amazed
at his first remark.
"I suppose you're engaged by this time," Richard said, calmly enough.
"Not quite," answered the Major. "There's a chance for you yet."
To this Richard made no rejoinder. Then, suddenly, "Have you had any
news of Captain Severn?" he asked.
For a moment the Major was perplexed at his question. He had assumed
that the news of Severn's death had come to Richard's ears, and he had
been half curious, half apprehensive as to its effect. But an instant's
reflection now assured him that the young man's estrangement from his
neighbors had kept him hitherto and might still keep him in ignorance of
the truth. Hastily, therefore, and inconsiderately, the Major determined
to confirm this ignorance. "No," said he; "I've had no news. Severn and
I are not on such terms as to correspond."
The next time Luttrel came to the farm, he found the master sitting up
in a great, cushioned, chintz-covered arm-chair which Gertrude had sent
him the day before out of her own dressing-room.
"Are you engaged yet?" asked Richard.
There was a strain as if of defiance in his tone. The Major was
irritated. "Yes," said he, "we are engaged now."
The young man's face betrayed no emotion.
"Are you reconciled to it?" asked Luttrel.
"Yes, practically I am."
"What do you mean by practically? Explain yourself."
"A man in my state can't explain himself. I mean that, however I feel
about it, I shall accept Gertrude's marriage."
"You're a wise man, my boy," said the Major, kindly.
"I'm growing wise. I feel like Solomon on his throne in this chair. But
I confess, sir, I don't see how she could have you."
"Well, there's no accounting for tastes," said the Major,
good-humoredly.
"Ah, if it's been a matter of taste with her," said Richard, "I have
nothing to say."
They came to no more express understanding than this with regard to the
future. Richard continued to grow stronger daily, and to defer the
renewal of his intercourse with Gertrude. A month before, he would have
resented as a bitter insult the intimation that he would ever be so
resigned to lose her as he now found himself. He would not see her for
two reasons: first, because he felt that it would be--or that at least
in reason it ought to be--a painful experience to look upon his old
mistress with a coldly critical eye; and secondly, because, justify to
himself as he would his new-born indifference, he could not entirely
cast away the suspicion that it was a last remnant of disease, and that,
when he stood on his legs again in the presence of those exuberant
landscapes with which he had long since established a sort of sensuous
communion, he would feel, as with a great tumultuous rush, the return of
his impetuous manhood and of his old capacity. When he had smoked a pipe
in the outer sunshine, when he had settled himself once more to the long
elastic bound of his mare, then he would see Gertrude. The reason of the
change which had come upon him was that she had disappointed him,--she,
whose magnanimity it had once seemed that his fancy was impotent to
measure. She had accepted Major Luttrel, a man whom he despised; she had
so mutilated her magnificent heart as to match it with his. The validity
of his dislike to the Major, Richard did not trouble himself to examine.
He accepted it as an unerring instinct; and, indeed, he might have asked
himself, had he not sufficient proof? Moreover he labored under the
sense of a gratuitous wrong. He had suffered an immense torment of
remorse to drive him into brutishness, and thence to the very gate of
death, for an offence which he had deemed mortal, and which was after
all but a phantasm of his impassioned conscience. What a fool he had
been! a fool for his nervous fears, and a fool for his penitence.
Marriage with Major Luttrel,--such was the end of Gertrude's fancied
anguish. Such, too, we hardly need add, was the end of that idea of
reparation which had been so formidable to Luttrel. Richard had been
generous; he would now be just.
Far from impeding his recovery, these reflections hastened it. One
morning in the beginning of August, Gertrude received notice of
Richard's presence. It was a still, sultry day, and Miss Whittaker, her
habitual pallor deepened by the oppressive heat, was sitting alone in a
white morning-dress, languidly fanning aside at once the droning flies
and her equally importunate thoughts. She found Richard standing in the
middle of the drawing-room, booted and spurred.
"Well, Richard," she exclaimed, with some feeling, "you're at last
willing to see me!"
As his eyes fell upon her, he started and stood almost paralyzed,
heeding neither her words nor her extended hand. It was not Gertrude he
saw, but her ghost.
"In Heaven's name what has happened to you?" he cried. "Have you been
ill?"
Gertrude tried to smile in feigned surprise at his surprise; but her
muscles relaxed. Richard's words and looks reflected more vividly than
any mirror the dejection of her person; and this, the misery of her
soul. She felt herself growing faint. She staggered back to a sofa and
sank down.
Then Richard felt as if the room were revolving about him, and as if his
throat were choked with imprecations,--as if his old erratic passion had
again taken possession of him, like a mingled legion of devils and
angels. It was through pity that his love returned. He went forward and
dropped on his knees at Gertrude's feet. "Speak to me!" he cried,
seizing her hands. "Are you unhappy? Is your heart broken? O Gertrude!
what have you come to?"
Gertrude drew her hands from his grasp and rose to her feet. "Get up,
Richard," she said. "Don't talk so wildly. I'm not well. I'm very glad
to see you. _You_ look well."
"I've got my strength again,--and meanwhile you've been failing. You're
unhappy, you're wretched! Don't say you're not, Gertrude: it's as plain
as day. You're breaking your heart."
"The same old Richard!" said Gertrude, trying to smile again.
"Would that you were the same old Gertrude! Don't try to smile; you
can't!"
"I _shall_!" said Gertrude, desperately. "I'm going to be married, you
know."
"Yes, I know. I don't congratulate you."
"I have not counted upon that honor, Richard. I shall have to do without
it."
"You'll have to do without a great many things!" cried Richard,
horrified by what seemed to him her blind self-immolation.
"I have all I ask," said Gertrude.
"You haven't all _I_ ask then! You haven't all your friends ask."
"My friends are very kind, but I marry to suit myself."
"You've not suited yourself!" retorted the young man. "You've
suited--God knows what!--your pride, your despair, your resentment." As
he looked at her, the secret history of her weakness seemed to become
plain to him, and he felt a mighty rage against the man who had taken a
base advantage of it. "Gertrude!" he cried, "I entreat you to go back.
It's not for my sake,--I'll give you up,--I'll go a thousand miles away,
and never look at you again. It's for your own. In the name of your
happiness, break with that man! Don't fling yourself away. Buy him off,
if you consider yourself bound. Give him your money. That's all he
wants."
As Gertrude listened, the blood came back to her face, and two flames
into her eyes. She looked at Richard from head to foot. "You are not
weak," she said, "you are in your senses, you are well and strong; you
shall tell me what you mean. You insult the best friend I have. Explain
yourself! you insinuate foul things,--speak them out!" Her eyes glanced
toward the door, and Richard's followed them. Major Luttrel stood on the
threshold.
"Come in, sir!" cried Richard. "Gertrude swears she'll believe no harm
of you. Come and tell her that she's wrong! How can you keep on
harassing a woman whom you've brought to this state? Think of what she
was three months ago, and look at her now!"
Luttrel received this broadside without flinching. He had overheard
Richard's voice from the entry, and he had steeled his heart for the
encounter. He assumed the air of having been so amazed by the young
man's first words as only to have heard his last; and he glanced at
Gertrude mechanically as if to comply with them. "What's the matter?" he
asked, going over to her, and taking her hand; "are you ill?" Gertrude
let him have her hand, but she forbore to meet his eyes.
"Ill! of course she's ill!" cried Richard, passionately. "She's
dying,--she's consuming herself! I know I seem to be playing an odious
part here, Gertrude, but, upon my soul, I can't help it. I look like a
betrayer, an informer, a sneak, but I don't feel like one! Still, I'll
leave you, if you say so."
"Shall he go, Gertrude?" asked Luttrel, without looking at Richard.
"No. Let him stay and explain himself. He has accused you,--let him
prove his case."
"I know what he is going to say," said Luttrel. "It will place me in a
bad light. Do you still wish to hear it?"
Gertrude drew her hand hastily out of Luttrel's. "Speak, Richard!" she
cried, with a passionate gesture.
"I will speak," said Richard. "I've done you a dreadful wrong, Gertrude.
How great a wrong, I never knew until I saw you to-day so miserably
altered. When I heard that you were to be married, I fancied that it was
no wrong, and that my remorse had been wasted. But I understand it now;
and he understands it, too. You once told me that you had ceased to love
Captain Severn. It wasn't true. You never ceased to love him. You love
him at this moment. If he were to get another wound in the next battle,
how would you feel? How would you bear it?" And Richard paused for an
instant with the force of his interrogation.
"For God's sake," cried Gertrude, "respect the dead!"
"The dead! Is he dead?"
Gertrude covered her face with her hands.
"You beast!" cried Luttrel.
Richard turned upon him savagely. "Shut your infernal mouth!" he roared.
"You told me he was alive and well!"
Gertrude made a movement of speechless distress.
"You would have it, my dear," said Luttrel, with a little bow.
Richard had turned pale, and began to tremble. "Excuse me, Gertrude," he
said hoarsely, "I've been deceived. Poor, unhappy woman! Gertrude," he
continued, going nearer to her, and speaking in a whisper, "_I_ killed
him."
Gertrude fell back from him, as he approached her, with a look of
unutterable horror. "I and _he_," said Richard, pointing at Luttrel.
Gertrude's eyes followed the direction of his gesture, and transferred
their scorching disgust to her suitor. This was too much for Luttrel's
courage. "You idiot!" she shouted at Richard, "speak out!"
"He loved you, though you believed he didn't," said Richard. "I saw it
the first time I looked at him. To every one but you it was as plain as
day. Luttrel saw it, too. But he was too modest, and he never fancied
you cared for him. The night before he went back to the army, he came to
bid you good-by. If he had seen you, it would have been better for every
one. You remember that evening, of course. We met him, Luttrel and I. He
was all on fire,--he meant to speak. I knew it; you knew it, Luttrel: it
was in his fingers' ends. I intercepted him. I turned him off,--I lied
to him and told him you were away. I was a coward, and I did neither
more nor less than that. I knew you were waiting for him. It was
stronger than my will,--I believe I should do it again. Fate was against
him, and he went off. I came back to tell you, but my damnable jealousy
strangled me. I went home and drank myself into a fever. I've done you a
wrong that I can never repair. I'd go hang myself if I thought it would
help you." Richard spoke slowly, softly, and explicitly, as if
irresistible Justice in person had her hand upon his neck, and were
forcing him down upon his knees. In the presence of Gertrude's dismay
nothing seemed possible but perfect self-conviction. In Luttrel's
attitude, as he stood with his head erect, his arms folded, and his
cold, gray eyes fixed upon the distance, it struck him that there was
something atrociously insolent; not insolent to him,--for that he cared
little enough,--but insolent to Gertrude and to the dreadful solemnity
of the hour. Richard sent the Major a look of the most aggressive
contempt. "As for Major Luttrel," he said, "_he_ was but a passive
spectator. No, Gertrude, by Heaven!" he burst out, "he was worse than I!
I loved you, and he didn't!"
"Our friend is correct in his facts, Gertrude," said Luttrel, quietly.
"He is incorrect in his opinions. I _was_ a passive spectator of his
deception. He appeared to enjoy a certain authority with regard to your
wishes,--the source of which I respected both of you sufficiently never
to question,--and I accepted the act which he has described as an
exercise of it. You will remember that you had sent us away on the
ground that you were in no humor for company. To deny you, therefore, to
another visitor, seemed to me rather officious, but still pardonable.
You will consider that I was wholly ignorant of your relations to that
visitor; that whatever you may have done for others, Gertrude, to me you
never vouchsafed a word of information on the subject, and that Mr.
Clare's words are a revelation to me. But I am bound to believe nothing
that he says. I am bound to believe that I have injured you only when I
hear it from your own lips."
Richard made a movement as if to break out upon the Major; but Gertrude,
who had been standing motionless with her eyes upon the ground, quickly
raised them, and gave him a look of imperious prohibition. She had
listened, and she had chosen. She turned to Luttrel. "Major Luttrel,"
she said, "you _have_ been an accessory in what has been for me a
serious grief. It is my duty to tell you so. I mean, of course, a
profoundly unwilling accessory. I pity you more than I can tell you. I
think your position more pitiable than mine. It is true that I never
made a confidant of you. I never made one of Richard. I had a secret,
and he surprised it. You were less fortunate." It might have seemed to a
thoroughly dispassionate observer that in these last four words there
was an infinitesimal touch of tragic irony. Gertrude paused a moment
while Luttrel eyed her intently, and Richard, from a somewhat tardy
instinct of delicacy, walked over to the bow-window. "This is the most
painful moment of my life," she resumed. "I hardly know where my duty
lies. The only thing that is plain to me is, that I must ask you to
release me from my engagement. I ask it most humbly, Major Luttrel,"
Gertrude continued, with warmth in her words, and a chilling coldness in
her voice,--a coldness which it sickened her to feel there, but which
she was unable to dispel. "I can't expect that you should give me up
easily; I know that it's a great deal to ask, and"--she forced the
chosen words out of her mouth--"I should thank you more than I can say
if you would put some condition upon my release. You have done honorably
by me, and I repay you with ingratitude. But I can't marry you." Her
voice began to melt. "I have been false from the beginning. I have no
heart to give you. I should make you a despicable wife."
The Major, too, had listened and chosen, and in this trying conjecture
he set the seal to his character as an accomplished man. He saw that
Gertrude's movement was final, and he determined to respect the
inscrutable mystery of her heart. He read in the glance of her eye and
the tone of her voice that the perfect dignity had fallen from his
character,--that his integrity had lost its bloom; but he also read her
firm resolve never to admit this fact to her own mind, nor to declare it
to the world, and he honored her forbearance. His hopes, his ambitions,
his visions, lay before him like a colossal heap of broken glass; but he
would be as graceful as she was. She had divined him; but she had spared
him. The Major was inspired.
"You have at least spoken to the point," he said. "You leave no room for
doubt or for hope. With the little light I have, I can't say I
understand your feelings, but I yield to them religiously. I believe so
thoroughly that you suffer from the thought of what you ask of me, that
I will not increase your suffering by assuring you of my own. I care for
nothing but your happiness. You have lost it, and I give you mine to
replace it. And although it's a simple thing to say," he added, "I must
say simply that I thank you for your implicit faith in my
integrity,"--and he held out his hand. As she gave him hers, Gertrude
felt utterly in the wrong; and she looked into his eyes with an
expression so humble, so appealing, so grateful, that, after all, his
exit may be called triumphant.
When he had gone, Richard turned from the window with an enormous sense
of relief. He had heard Gertrude's speech, and he knew that perfect
justice had not been done; but still there was enough to be thankful
for. Yet now that his duty was accomplished, he was conscious of a
sudden lassitude. Mechanically he looked at Gertrude, and almost
mechanically he came towards her. She, on her side, looking at him as he
walked slowly down the long room, his face indistinct against the
deadened light of the white-draped windows behind him, marked the
expression of his figure with another pang. "He has rescued me," she
said to herself; "but his passion has perished in the tumult. Richard,"
she said aloud, uttering the first words of vague kindness that came
into her mind, "I forgive you."
Richard stopped. The idea had lost its charm. "You're very kind," he
said, wearily. "You're far too kind. How do you know you forgive me?
Wait and see."
Gertrude looked at him as she had never looked before; but he saw
nothing of it. He saw a sad, plain girl in a white dress, nervously
handling her fan. He was thinking of himself. If he had been thinking of
her, he would have read in her lingering, upward gaze, that he had won
her; and if, so reading, he had opened his arms, Gertrude would have
come to them. We trust the reader is not shocked. She neither hated him
nor despised him, as she ought doubtless in consistency to have done.
She felt that he was abundantly a man, and she loved him. Richard, on
his side, felt humbly the same truth, and he began to respect himself.
The past had closed abruptly behind him, and tardy Gertrude had been
shut in. The future was dimly shaping itself without her image. So he
did not open his arms.
"Good-by," he said, holding out his hand. "I may not see you again for a
long time."
Gertrude felt as if the world were deserting her. "Are you going away?"
she asked, tremulously.
"I mean to sell out and pay my debts, and go to the war."
She gave him her hand, and he silently shook it. There was no contending
with the war, and she gave him up.
With their separation our story properly ends, and to say more would be
to begin a new story. It is, perhaps, our duty, however, expressly to
add, that Major Luttrel, in obedience to a logic of his own, abstained
from revenge; and that, if time has not avenged him, it has at least
rewarded him. General Luttrel, who lost an arm before the war was over,
recently married Miss Van Winkel of Philadelphia, and seventy thousand a
year. Richard engaged in the defence of his country, on a captain's
commission, obtained with some difficulty. He saw a great deal of
fighting, but he has no scars to show. The return of peace found him in
his native place, without a home, and without resources. One of his
first acts was to call dutifully and respectfully upon Miss Whittaker,
whose circle of acquaintance had apparently become very much enlarged,
and now included a vast number of gentlemen. Gertrude's manner was
kindness itself, but a more studied kindness than before. She had lost
much of her youth and her simplicity. Richard wondered whether she had
pledged herself to spinsterhood, but, of course, he didn't ask her. She
inquired very particularly into his material prospects and intentions,
and offered most urgently to lend him money, which he declined to
borrow. When he left her, he took a long walk through her place and
beside the river, and, wandering back to the days when he had yearned
for her love, assured himself that no woman would ever again be to him
what she had been. During his stay in this neighborhood he found himself
impelled to a species of submission to one of the old agricultural
magnates whom he had insulted in his unregenerate days, and through whom
he was glad to obtain some momentary employment. But his present
position is very distasteful to him, and he is eager to try his fortunes
in the West. As yet, however, he has lacked even the means to get as far
as St. Louis. He drinks no more than is good for him. To speak of
Gertrude's impressions of Richard would lead us quite too far. Shortly
after his return she broke up her household, and came to the bold
resolution (bold, that is, for a woman young, unmarried, and ignorant of
manners in her own country) to spend some time in Europe. At our last
accounts she was living in the ancient city of Florence. Her great
wealth, of which she was wont to complain that it excluded her from
human sympathy, now affords her a most efficient protection. She passes
among her fellow-countrymen abroad for a very independent, but a very
happy woman; although, as she is by this time twenty-seven years of age,
a little romance is occasionally invoked to account for her continued
celibacy.
III
A DAY OF DAYS
Mr. Herbert Moore, a gentleman of some note in the scientific world, and
a childless widower, finding himself at last unable to reconcile his
sedentary habits with the management of a household, had invited his
only sister to come and superintend his domestic affairs. Miss Adela
Moore had assented the more willingly to his proposal, as by her
mother's death she had recently been left without a formal protector.
She was twenty-five years of age, and was a very active member of what
she and her friends called society. She was almost equally at home in
the very best company of three great cities, and she had encountered
most of the adventures which await a young girl on the threshold of
life. She had become rather hastily and imprudently engaged, but she had
eventually succeeded in disengaging herself. She had spent a summer in
Europe, and she had made a voyage to Cuba with a dear friend in the last
stage of consumption, who had died at the hotel in Havana. Although by
no means beautiful in person, she was yet thoroughly pleasing, rejoicing
in what young ladies are fond of calling an _air_. That is, she was tall
and slender, with a long neck, a low forehead and a handsome nose. Even
after six years of "society," too, she still had excellent manners. She
was, moreover, mistress of a very pretty little fortune, and was
accounted clever without detriment to her amiability, and amiable
without detriment to her wit. These facts, as the reader will allow,
might have ensured her the very best prospects; but he has seen that she
had found herself willing to forfeit her prospects and bury herself in
the country. It seemed to her that she had seen enough of the world and
of human nature, and that a couple of years of seclusion might not be
unprofitable. She had begun to suspect that for a girl of her age she
was unduly old and wise--and, what is more, to suspect that others
suspected as much. A great observer of life and manners, so far as her
opportunities went, she conceived that it behooved her to organize the
results of her observation into principles of conduct and of belief. She
was becoming--so she argued--too impersonal, too critical, too
intelligent, too contemplative, too just. A woman had no business to be
so just. The society of nature, of the great expansive skies and the
primeval woods, would prove severely unpropitious to her excessive
intellectual growth. She would spend her time in the fields and live in
her feelings, her simple sense, and the perusal of profitable books from
Herbert's library.
She found her brother very prettily housed at about a mile's distance
from the nearest town, and at about six miles' distance from another
town, the seat of a small college, before which he delivered a weekly
lecture. She had seen so little of him of late years that his
acquaintance was almost to make; but it was very soon made. Herbert
Moore was one of the simplest and least aggressive of men, and one of
the most patient and delicate of students. He had a vague notion that
Adela was a young woman of extravagant pleasures, and that, somehow, on
her arrival, his house would be overrun with the train of her attendant
revellers. It was not until after they had been six months together that
he discovered that his sister was a model of diligence and temperance.
By the time six months more had passed, Adela had bought back a
delightful sense of youth and _naïveté_. She learned, under her
brother's tuition, to walk--nay, to climb, for there were great hills in
the neighborhood--to ride and to botanize. At the end of a year, in the
month of August, she received a visit from an old friend, a girl of her
own age, who had been spending July at a watering-place, and who was
about to be married. Adela had begun to fear that she had lapsed into an
almost irreclaimable rusticity, and had suffered a permanent diminution
of the social facility for which she had formerly been distinguished;
but a week spent in _tête-à-tête_ with her friend convinced her not
only that she had not forgotten much that she had feared, but also that
she had not forgotten much that she had hoped. For this, and other
reasons, her friend's departure left her slightly depressed. She felt
lonely and even a little elderly. She had lost another illusion. Laura
B., for whom a year ago she had entertained a serious regard, now
impressed her as a very flimsy little person, who talked about her lover
with almost indecent flippancy.
Meanwhile, September was slowly running its course. One morning Mr.
Moore took a hasty breakfast and started to catch the train for S.,
whither a scientific conference called him, which might, he said,
release him that afternoon in time for dinner at home, and might, on the
other hand, detain him until the evening. It was almost the first time
during Adela's rustication that she had been left alone for several
hours. Her brother's quiet presence was inappreciable enough; yet now
that he was at a distance she nevertheless felt a singular sense of
freedom; a sort of return of those days of early childhood, when,
through some domestic catastrophe, she had for an infinite morning been
left to her own devices. What should she do? she asked herself, half
laughing. It was a fair day for work: but it was a still better one for
play. Should she drive into town and pay a long-standing debt of morning
calls? Should she go into the kitchen and try her hand at a pudding for
dinner? She felt a delicious longing to do something illicit, to play
with fire, to discover some Bluebeard's closet. But poor Herbert was no
Bluebeard. If she were to burn down his house he would exact no amends.
Adela went out to the veranda, and, sitting down on the steps, gazed
across the country. It was apparently the last day of Summer. The sky
was faintly blue; the woody hills were putting on the morbid colors of
Autumn; the great pine grove behind the house seemed to have caught and
imprisoned the protesting breezes. Looking down the road toward the
village, it occurred to Adela that she might have a visit, and so kindly
was her mood that she felt herself competent to a chat with one of her
rustic neighbors. As the sun rose higher, she went in and established
herself with a piece of embroidery in a deep, bow window in the second
story, which, betwixt its muslin curtains and its external frame-work of
vines, commanded most insidiously the principal approach to the house.
While she drew her threads, she surveyed the road with a deepening
conviction that she was destined to have a caller. The air was warm, yet
not hot; the dust had been laid during the night by a gentle rain. It
had been from the first a source of complaint among Adela's new friends
that her courtesies were so thoroughly indiscriminating. Not only had
she lent herself to no friendships, but she had committed herself to no
preferences. Nevertheless, it was with a by no means impartial fancy
that she sat thus expectant at her casement. She had very soon made up
her mind that, to answer the exactions of the hour, her visitor should
perforce be of the other sex, and as, thanks to the somewhat
uncompromising indifference which, during her residence, she had
exhibited to the _jeunesse dorée_ of the county, her roll-call, in this
her hour of need, was limited to a single name, so her thoughts were now
centered upon the bearer of that name, Mr. Madison Perkins, the
Unitarian minister. If, instead of being Miss Moore's story, this were
Mr. Perkins's, it might easily be condensed into the one pregnant fact
that he was very far gone in love for our heroine. Although of a
different faith from his, she had been so well pleased with one of his
sermons, to which she had allowed herself to lend a tolerant ear, that,
meeting him some time afterward, she had received him with what she
considered a rather knotty doctrinal question; whereupon, gracefully
waiving the question, he had asked permission to call upon her and talk
over her "difficulties." This short interview had enshrined her in the
young minister's heart; and the half-dozen occasions on which he had
subsequently contrived to see her had each contributed an additional
taper to her shrine. It is but fair to add, however, that, although a
captive, Mr. Perkins was as yet no captor. He was simply an honorable
young man, who happened at this moment to be the most sympathetic
companion within reach. Adela, at twenty-five years of age, had both a
past and a future. Mr. Perkins reëchoed the one, and foreshadowed the
other.
So, at last, when, as the morning waned toward noon, Adela descried in
the distance a man's figure treading the grassy margin of the road, and
swinging his stick as she came, she smiled to herself with some
complacency. But even while she smiled she became conscious of a most
foolish acceleration of the process of her heart. She rose, and
resenting her gratuitous emotion, stood for a moment half resolved to
have herself denied. As she did so, she glanced along the road again.
Her friend had drawn nearer, and, as the distance lessened, lo! it
seemed to her that he was not her friend. Before many moments her doubts
were removed. The gentleman was a stranger. In front of the house three
roads diverged from a great spreading elm. The stranger came along the
opposite side of the highway, and when he reached the elm stopped and
looked about him as if to verify a direction. Then he deliberately
crossed over. Adela had time to see, unseen, that he was a shapely young
man, with a bearded chin and a straw hat. After the due interval, Becky,
the maid, came up with a card somewhat rudely superscribed in pencil:
THOMAS LUDLOW,
_New York._
Turning it over in her fingers, Adela saw that the reverse of a card had
been used, abstracted from the basket on her own drawing-room table. The
printed name on the other side was dashed out; it ran: _Mr. Madison
Perkins_.
"He asked me to give you this, ma'am," said Becky. "He helped himself to
it out of the tray."
"Did he ask for me by name?"
"No, ma'am, he asked for Mr. Moore. When I told him Mr. Moore was away,
he asked for some of the family. I told him you were all the family,
ma'am."
"Very well," said Adela, "I will go down." But, begging her pardon, we
will precede her by a few steps.
Tom Ludlow, as his friends called him, was a young man of twenty-eight,
concerning whom you might have heard the most various opinions; for, as
far as he was known (which, indeed, was not very far), he was at once
one of the best liked and one of the best hated of men. Born in one of
the lower _strata_ of New York society, he was still slightly incrusted,
if we may so express it, with his native soil. A certain crudity of
manners and of aspect proved him to be one of the great majority of the
ungloved. On this basis, however, he was a sufficiently good-looking
fellow: a middle-sized, agile figure; a head so well shaped as to be
handsome; a pair of inquisitive, responsive eyes, and a large, manly
mouth, constituting his heritage of beauty. Turned upon the world at an
early age, he had, in the pursuit of a subsistence, tried his head at
everything in succession, and had generally found it to be quite as hard
as the opposing substance; and his figure may have been thought to
reflect this sweet assurance in a look of somewhat aggressive
satisfaction with things in general, himself included. He was a man of
strong faculties and a strong will, but it is doubtful whether his
feelings were stronger than he. He was liked for his directness, his
good humor, his general soundness and serviceableness; he was disliked
for the same qualities under different names; that is, for his
impudence, his offensive optimisms, and his inhuman avidity for facts.
When his friends insisted upon his noble disinterestedness, his enemies
were wont to reply it was all very well to ignore, to nullify oneself in
the pursuit of science, but that to suppress the rest of mankind
coincidentally betrayed an excess of zeal. Fortunately for Ludlow, on
the whole, he was no great listener; and even if he had been, a certain
plebeian thick-skinnedness would have been the guaranty of his
equanimity; although it must be added that, if, like a genuine democrat,
he was very insensitive, like a genuine democrat, too, he was amazingly
proud. His tastes, which had always been for the natural sciences, had
recently led him to paleontology, that branch of them cultivated by
Herbert Moore; and it was upon business connected with this pursuit
that, after a short correspondence, he had now come to see him.
As Adela went in to him, he came out with a bow from the window, whence
he had been contemplating the lawn. She acknowledged his greeting.
"Miss Moore, I believe," said Ludlow.
"Miss Moore," said Adela.
"I beg your pardon for this intrusion, but as I had come from a distance
to see Mr. Moore on business, I thought I might venture either to ask at
headquarters how he may most easily be reached, or even to charge you
with a message." These words were accompanied with a smile before which
it was Adela's destiny to succumb--if this is not too forcible a term
for the movement of feeling with which she answered them.
"Pray make no apologies," she said. "We hardly recognize such a thing as
intrusion in the country. Won't you sit down? My brother went away only
this morning, and I expect him back this afternoon."
"This afternoon? indeed. In that case I believe I'll wait. It was very
stupied of me not to have dropped a word beforehand. But I have been in
the city all Summer long, and I shall not be sorry to screw a little
vacation out of this business. I'm prodigiously fond of the country, and
I very seldom get a glimpse of it."
"It's possible," said Adela, "that my brother may not come home until
the evening. He was uncertain. You might go to him at S."
Ludlow reflected a moment, with his eyes on his hostess. "If he does
return in the afternoon, at what hour will he arrive?"
"At three."
"And my own train leaves at four. Allow him a quarter of an hour to come
from town and myself a quarter of an hour to get there (if he would give
me his vehicle, back), I should have half an hour to see him. We
couldn't do much talk, but I could ask him the essential questions. I
wish chiefly to ask him for some letters. It seems a pity to take two
superfluous--that is, possibly superfluous--railway journeys of an hour
apiece, for I should probably come back with him. Don't you think so?"
he asked, very frankly.
"You know best," said Adela. "I'm not particularly fond of the journey
to S., even when it's absolutely necessary."
"Yes; and then this is such a lovely day for a good long ramble in the
fields. That's a thing I haven't done since I don't know when. I'll
stay." And he placed his hat on the floor beside him.
"I'm afraid, now that I think of it," said Adela, "that there is no
train until so late an hour that you would have very little time left on
your arrival to talk with my brother before the hour at which he himself
might have determined to start for home. It's true that you might induce
him to remain till the evening."
"Dear me! I shouldn't like to do that. It might be very inconvenient for
him. Besides I shouldn't have time. And then I always like to see a man
in his own home--or in my own home; a man, that is, whom I have any
regard for--and I have a very great regard for your brother, Miss Moore.
When men meet at a half-way house, neither feels at his ease. And then
this is such an uncommonly pretty place of yours," pursued Ludlow,
looking about him.
"Yes, it's a very pretty place," said Adela.
Ludlow got up and walked to the window. "I want to look at your view,"
said he. "A lovely view it is. You're a happy woman, Miss Moore, to live
before such a prospect."
"Yes, if pretty scenery can make one happy, I ought to be happy." And
Adela was glad to regain her feet and stand on the other side of the
table, before the window.
"Don't you think it can?" asked Ludlow turning around. "I don't know,
though, perhaps it can't. Ugly sights can't make you unhappy,
necessarily. I've been working for a year in one of the narrowest,
darkest, dirtiest, and busiest streets in New York, with rusty bricks
and muddy gutters for scenery. But I think I can hardly set up to be
miserable. I wish I could. It might be a claim on your favor." As he
said these words, he stood leaning against the window shutter, without
the curtain, with folded arms. The morning light covered his face, and,
mingled with that of his broad laugh, showed Adela that it was a very
pleasant face.
"Whatever else he may be," she said to herself as she stood within the
shade of the other curtain, playing with the paper-knife which she had
plucked from the table. "I think he is honest. I am afraid he isn't a
gentleman--but he is not a simpleton." She met his eye frankly for a
moment. "What do you want of my favor?" she asked, with an abruptness of
which she was acutely conscious. "Does he wish to make friends," she
pursued, "or does he merely wish to pay me a vulgar compliment? There is
bad taste, perhaps, in either case, but especially in the latter."
Meanwhile her visitor had already answered her.
"What do I want of your favor? Why, I want to make the most of it." And
Ludlow blushed at his own audacity.
Adela, however, kept her color. "I'm afraid it will need all your
pulling and stretching," she said, with a little laugh.
"All right. I'm great at pulling and stretching," said Ludlow, with a
deepening of his great masculine blush, and a broad laugh to match it.
Adela glanced toward the clock on the mantle. She was curious to measure
the duration of her acquaintance with this breezy invader of her
privacy, with whom she so suddenly found herself bandying florid
personalities. She had known him some eight minutes.
Ludlow observed her movement. "I'm interrupting you and detaining you
from your own affairs," he said; and he moved toward his hat. "I suppose
I must bid you good-morning." And he picked it up.
Adela stood at the table and watched him cross the room. To express a
very delicate feeling in terms comparatively broad, she was loth to have
him go. She divined, too, that he was loth to go. The knowledge of this
feeling on his part, however, affected her composure but slightly. The
truth is--we say it with all respect--Adela was an old hand. She was
modest, honest and wise; but, as we have said, she had a past--a past
of which importunate swains in the guise of morning-callers had been no
inconsiderable part; and a great dexterity in what may be called
outflanking these gentlemen, was one of her registered accomplishments.
Her liveliest emotion at present, therefore, was less one of annoyance
at her companion than of surprise at her own gracious impulses, which
were yet undeniable. "Am I dreaming?" she asked herself. She looked out
of the window, and then back at Ludlow, who stood grasping his hat and
stick, contemplating her face. Should she bid him remain? "He is
honest," she repeated; "why should not I be honest for once?" "I'm sorry
you are in a hurry," she said aloud.
"I am in no hurry," he answered.
Adela turned her face to the window again, and toward the opposite
hills. There was a moment's pause.
"I thought you were in a hurry," said Ludlow.
Adela gave him her eyes. "My brother would be very glad to have you
remain as long as you like. He would expect me to offer you what little
hospitality is in my power."
"Pray, offer it then."
"That's easily done. This is the parlor, and there, beyond the hall, is
my brother's study. Perhaps you would like to look at his books and his
collections. I know nothing about them, and I should be a very poor
guide. But you are welcome to go in and use your discretion in examining
what may interest you."
"This, I take it, would be but another way of bidding you good-morning."
"For the present, yes."
"But I hesitate to take such liberties with your brother's treasures as
you prescribe."
"Prescribe, sir? I prescribe nothing."
"But if I decline to penetrate into Mr. Moore's _sanctum_, what
alternative remains?"
"Really--you must make your own alternative." "I think you mentioned the
parlor. Suppose I choose that."
"Just as you please. Here are some books, and, if you like, I will bring
you some magazines. Can I serve you in any other way? Are you tired by
your walk? Would you like a glass of wine?"
"Tired by my walk?--not exactly. You are very kind, but I feel no
immediate desire for a glass of wine. I think you needn't trouble
yourself about the magazines, either. I am in no mood to read." And
Ludlow pulled out his watch and compared it with the clock. "I'm afraid
your clock is fast."
"Yes;" said Adela, "very likely."
"Some ten minutes. Well, I suppose I had better be walking;" and, coming
toward Adela, he extended his hand.
She gave him hers. "It's a day of days for a long, slow ramble," she
said.
Ludlow's only rejoinder was his hand-shake. He moved slowly toward the
door, half accompanied by Adela. "Poor fellow!" she said to herself. The
lattice summer-door admitted into the entry a cool, dusky light, in
which Adela looked pale. Ludlow divided its wings with his stick, and
disclosed a landscape, long, deep and bright, framed by the pillars of
the veranda. He stopped on the threshold, swinging his stick. "I hope I
shan't lose my way," he said.
"I hope not. My brother will not forgive me if you do."
Ludlow's brows were slightly contracted by a frown, but he contrived to
smile with his lips. "When shall I come back?" he asked abruptly.
Adela found but a low tone--almost a whisper--at her command, to answer.
"Whenever you please," she said.
The young man turned about, with his back to the bright doorway, and
looked into Adela's face, which was now covered with light. "Miss
Moore," said he, "it's very much against my will that I leave you at
all."
Adela stood debating within herself. What if her companion should stay?
It would, under the circumstances, be an adventure; but was an adventure
necessarily unadvisable? It lay wholly with herself to decide. She was
her own mistress, and she had hitherto been a just mistress. Might she
not for once be a generous one? The reader will observe in Adela's
meditation the recurrence of this saving clause "for once." It rests
upon the simple fact that she had begun the day in a romantic mood. She
was prepared to be interested; and now that an interesting phenomenon
had presented itself, that it stood before her in vivid human--nay,
manly--shape, instinct with reciprocity, was she to close her hand to
the liberality of fate? To do so would be to court mischance; for it
would involve, moreover, a petty insult to human nature. Was not the man
before her fairly redolent of honesty, and was that not enough? He was
not what Adela had been used to call a gentleman. To this conviction she
had made a swallow's flight; but from this assurance she would start. "I
have seen" (she thus concluded) "all the gentlemen can show me; let us
try something new."
"I see no reason why you should run away so fast, Mr. Ludlow," she said,
aloud.
"I think," cried Ludlow, "it would be the greatest piece of folly I ever
committed."
"I think it would be a pity," said Adela, with a smile.
"And you invite me into your parlor again? I come as your visitor, you
know. I was your brother's before. It's a simple enough matter. We are
old friends. We have a broad, common ground in your brother. Isn't that
about it?"
"You may adopt whatever theory you please. To my mind, it is, indeed, a
very simple matter."
"Oh, but I wouldn't have it too simple," said Ludlow, with a mighty
smile.
"Have it as you please."
Ludlow leaned back against the doorway. "Your kindness is too much for
me, Miss Moore," said he. "I am passive; I am in your hands; do with me
what you please. I can't help contrasting my fate with what it might
have been but for you. A quarter of an hour ago I was ignorant of your
existence; you weren't in my programme. I had no idea your brother had a
sister. When your servant spoke of 'Miss Moore,' upon my word I expected
something rather elderly--something venerable--some rigid old lady, who
would say, 'exactly,' and 'very well, sir,' and leave me to spend the
rest of the morning tilting back in a chair on the hotel piazza. It
shows what fools we are to attempt to forecast the future.
"We must not let our imagination run away with us in any direction,"
said Adela.
"Imagination? I don't believe I have any. No, madam," and Ludlow
straightened himself up, "I live in the present. I write my programme
from hour to hour--or, at any rate, I will in the future."
"I think you are very wise," said Adela. "Suppose you write a programme
for the present hour. What shall we do? It seems to me a pity to spend
so lovely a morning in-doors. I fancy this is the last day of Summer. We
ought to celebrate it. How would you like a walk?" Adela had decided
that, to reconcile her favors with the proper maintenance of her
dignity, her only course was to play the perfect hostess. This decision
made, very naturally and gracefully she played her part. It was the one
possible part. And yet it did not preclude those delicate sensations
with which her novel episode seemed charged: it simply legitimated them.
A romantic adventure on so classical a basis would assuredly hurt no
one.
"I should like a walk very much," said Ludlow; "a walk with a halt at
the end of it."
"Well, if you will consent to a short halt at the beginning of it," said
Adela, "I will be with you in a very few minutes." When she returned in
her little hat and shawl, she found her friend seated on the veranda
steps. He arose and gave her a card.
"I have been requested, in your absence, to hand you this," he said.
Adela read with some compunction the name of Mr. Madison Perkins.
"Has he been here?" she asked. "Why didn't he come in?"
"I told him you were not at home. If it wasn't true then, it was going
to be true so soon that the interval was hardly worth taking account of.
He addressed himself to me, as I seemed from my position to be quite at
home here; but I confess he looked at me as if he doubted my word. He
hesitated as to whether he should confide his name to me, or whether he
should confide it in that shape to the entry table. I think he wished to
show me that he suspected my veracity, for he was making rather grimly
for the table when I, fearing that once inside the house he might
encounter the living truth, informed him in the most good-humored tone
possible that I would take charge of his little tribute.
"I think, Mr. Ludlow, that you are a strangely unscrupulous man. How did
you know that Mr. Perkins's business was not urgent?"
"I didn't know it. But I knew it could be no more urgent than mine.
Depend upon it, Miss Moore, you have no case against me. I only pretend
to be a man; to have admitted that charming young gentleman would have
been heroic."
Adela was familiar with a sequestered spot, in the very heart of the
fields, as it seemed to her, to which she now proposed to conduct her
friend. The point was to select a goal neither too distant nor too near,
and to adopt a pace neither too rapid nor too slow. But although Adela's
happy valley was a good two miles away, and they had measured the
interval with the very _minimum_ of speed, yet most sudden seemed their
arrival at the stile over which Adela was used to strike into the
meadows. Once on the road, she felt a precipitate conviction that there
could be no evil in an adventure so essentially wholesome as that to
which she had lent herself, and that there could be no guile in a spirit
so deeply sensitive to the sacred influences of Nature, and to the
melancholy aspect of incipient Autumn as that of her companion. A man
with an unaffected relish for small children is a man to inspire young
women with a generous confidence; and so, in a lesser degree, a man
with a genuine feeling for the simple beauties of a common New England
landscape may not unreasonably be accepted by the daughters of the scene
as a person worthy of their esteem. Adela was a great observer of the
clouds, the trees and the streams, the sounds and colors, the echoes and
reflections native to her adopted home; and she experienced an honest
joy at the sight of Ludlow's keen appreciation of these modest facts.
His enjoyment of them, deep as it was, however, had to struggle against
that sensuous depression natural to a man who has spent the Summer in a
close and fetid laboratory in the heart of a great city, and against a
sensation of a less material color--the feeling that Adela was a
delightful girl. Still, naturally a great talker, he celebrated his
impressions in a generous flow of good-humored eloquence. Adela resolved
within herself that he was decidedly a companion for the open air. He
was a man to make use, even to abuse, of the wide horizon and the high
ceiling of Nature. The freedom of his gestures, the sonority of his
voice, the keenness of his vision, the general vivacity of his manners,
seemed to necessitate and to justify a universal absence of barriers.
They crossed the stile, and waded through the long grass of several
successive meadows, until the ground began to rise, the stony surfaces
to crop through the turf, when, after a short ascent, they reached a
broad plateau, covered with boulders and shrubs, which lost itself on
one side in a short, steep cliff, whence fields and marshes stretched
down to the opposite river; and on the other, in scattered clumps of
pine and maple, which gradually thickened and multiplied, until the
horizon in that quarter was blue with a long line of woods. Here was
both sun and shade--the unobstructed sky, or the whispering dome of a
circle of pines. Adela led the way to a sunny seat among the rocks,
which commanded the course of the river, and where a cluster of trees
would lend an admonitory undertone to their conversation.
Before long, however, its muffled eloquence became rather importunate,
and Adela remarked upon the essential melancholy of the phenomenon.
"It has always seemed to me," rejoined Ludlow, "that the wind in the
pines expresses tolerably well man's sense of a coming change, simply as
a change."
"Perhaps it does," said Adela. "The pines are forever rustling, and men
are forever changing."
"Yes, but they can only be said to express it when there is some one
there to hear them; and more especially some one in whose life a change
is, to his own knowledge, going to take place. Then they are quite
prophetic. Don't you know Longfellow says so?"
"Yes, I know Longfellow says so. But you seem to speak from your own
feeling."
"I do."
"Is there a change pending in your life?"
"Yes, rather an important one."
"I believe that's what men say when they are going to be married," said
Adela.
"I'm going to be divorced, rather. I'm going to Europe."
"Indeed! soon?"
"To-morrow," said Ludlow, after an instant's pause.
"Oh!" said Adela. "How I envy you!"
Ludlow, who sat looking over the cliff and tossing stones down into the
plain, observed a certain inequality in the tone of his companion's two
exclamations. The first was nature, the second art. He turned his eyes
upon her, but she had turned hers away upon the distance. Then, for a
moment, he retreated within himself and thought. He rapidly surveyed his
position. Here was he, Tom Ludlow, a hard-headed son of toil, without
fortune, without credit, without antecedents, whose lot was cast
exclusively with vulgar males, and who had never had a mother, a sister
nor a well-bred sweetheart to pitch his voice for the feminine tympanum;
who had seldom come nearer an indubitable young lady than, in a favoring
crowd, to receive a mechanical "thank you" (as if he were a policeman),
for some ingeniously provoked service; here he found himself up to his
neck in a sudden pastoral with the most ladyish young woman in the land.
That it was in him to enjoy the society of such a woman (provided, of
course, she were not a fool), he very well knew; but he had not yet
suspected that it was possible for him (in the midst of more serious
cares) to obtain it. Was he now to infer that this final gift was
his--the gift of pleasing women who were worth the pleasing? The
inference was at least logical. He had made a good impression. Why else
should a modest and discerning girl have so speedily granted him her
favor? It was with a little thrill of satisfaction that Ludlow reflected
upon the directness of his course. "It all comes back," he said to
himself, "to my old theory, that a process can't be too simple. I used
no arts. In such an enterprise I shouldn't have known where to begin. It
was my ignorance of the regulation method that served me. Women like a
gentleman, of course; but they like a man better." It was the little
touch of nature he had discerned in Adela's tone that had set him
thinking; but as compared with the frankness of his own attitude it
betrayed after all no undue emotion. Ludlow had accepted the fact of his
adaptability to the idle mood of a cultivated woman in a thoroughly
rational spirit, and he was not now tempted to exaggerate its bearings.
He was not the man to be intoxicated by success--this or any other. "If
Miss Moore," he pursued, "is so wise--or so foolish--as to like me half
an hour for what I am, she is welcome. Assuredly," he added, as he gazed
at her intelligent profile, "she will not like me for what I am not." It
needs a woman, however, far more intelligent than (thank heaven!) most
women are--more intelligent, certainly, than Adela was--to guard her
happiness against a strong man's consistent assumption of her
intelligence; and doubtless it was from a sense of this general truth,
as Ludlow still gazed, he felt an emotion of manly tenderness. "I
wouldn't offend her for the world," he thought. Just then, Adela,
conscious of his gaze, looked about; and before he knew it, Ludlow had
repeated aloud, "Miss Moore, I wouldn't offend you for the world."
Adela glanced at him for a moment with a little flush that subsided into
a smile. "To what dreadful injury is that the prelude?" she asked.
"It's the prelude to nothing. It refers to the past--to any possible
displeasure I may have caused you."
"Your scruples are unnecessary, Mr. Ludlow. If you had given me offence,
I should not have left you to apologize for it. I should not have left
the matter to occur to you as you sat dreaming charitably in the sun."
"What would you have done?"
"Done? nothing. You don't imagine I would have rebuked you--or snubbed
you--or answered you back, I take it. I would have left undone--what, I
can't tell you. Ask yourself what I have done. I'm sure I hardly know
myself," said Adela, with some intensity. "At all events, here I am
sitting with you in the fields, as if you were a friend of years. Why do
you speak of offence?" And Adela (an uncommon accident with her) lost
command of her voice, which trembled ever so slightly. "What an odd
thought! why should you offend me? Do I invite it?" Her color had
deepened again, and her eyes brightened. She had forgotten herself, and
before speaking had not, as was her wont, sought counsel of that staunch
conservative, her taste. She had spoken from a full heart--a heart which
had been filling rapidly since the outset of their walk with a feeling
almost passionate in its quality, and which that little blast of prose
which had brought her Ludlow's announcement of his departure, had caused
to overflow. The reader may give this feeling such a name as he pleases.
We will content ourselves with saying that Adela had played with fire so
effectually that she had been scorched. The slight vehemence of the
speech just quoted had covered her sensation of pain.
"You pull one up rather short, Miss Moore," said Ludlow. "A man says the
best he can."
Adela made no reply. For a moment she hung her head. Was she to cry out
because she was hurt? Was she to introduce her injured soul as an
impertinent third into the company? No! Here our reserved and
contemplative heroine is herself again. Her part was still to be the
perfect young lady. For our own part, we can imagine no figure more
bewitching than that of the perfect young lady under these
circumstances; and if Adela had been the most accomplished coquette in
the world she could not have assumed a more becoming expression than the
air of languid equanimity which now covered her features. But having
paid this generous homage to propriety, she felt free to suffer. Raising
her eyes from the ground, she abruptly addressed her companion with
this injunction:
"Mr. Ludlow," said she, "tell me something about yourself."
Ludlow burst into a laugh. "What shall I tell you?"
"Everything."
"Everything? Excuse me, I'm not such a fool. But do you know that's a
delicious request you make? I suppose I ought to blush and hesitate; but
I never yet blushed or hesitated in the right place."
"Very good. There is one fact. Continue. Begin at the beginning."
"Well, let me see. My name you know. I'm twenty-eight years old."
"That's the end," said Adela.
"But you don't want the history of my babyhood, I take it. I imagine
that I was a very big, noisy and ugly baby: what's called a 'splendid
infant.' My parents were poor, and, of course, honest. They belonged to
a very different set--or 'sphere', I suppose you call it--from any you
probably know. They were working people. My father was a chemist in a
small way, and I fancy my mother was not above using her hands to turn a
penny. But although I don't remember her, I am sure she was a good,
sound woman; I feel her occasionally in my own sinews. I myself have
been at work all my life, and a very good worker I am, let me tell you.
I'm not patient, as I imagine your brother to be--although I have more
patience than you might suppose--but I'm plucky. If you think I'm
over-egotistical, remember 'twas you began it. I don't know whether I'm
clever, and I don't much care; that word is used only by unpractical
people. But I'm clear-headed, and inquisitive, and enthusiastic. That's
as far as I can describe myself. I don't know anything about my
character. I simply suspect I'm a pretty good fellow. I don't know
whether I'm grave or gay, lively or severe. I don't know whether I'm
high-tempered or low-tempered. I don't believe I'm 'high-toned.' I fancy
I'm good-natured enough, inasmuch as I'm not nervous. I should not be at
all surprised to discover I was prodigiously conceited; but I'm afraid
the discovery wouldn't cut me down, much. I'm desperately hard to snub,
I know. Oh, you would think me a great brute if you knew me. I should
hesitate to say whether I am of a loving turn. I know I'm desperately
tired of a number of persons who are very fond of me; I'm afraid I'm
ungrateful. Of course as a man speaking to a woman, there's nothing for
it but to say I'm selfish; but I hate to talk about such windy
abstractions. In the way of positive facts: I'm not educated. I know no
Greek and very little Latin. But I can honestly say that first and last
I have read a great many books--and, thank God, I have a memory! And I
have some tastes, too. I'm very fond of music. I have a good old voice
of my own: that I can't help knowing; and I'm not one to be bullied
about pictures. Is that enough? I'm conscious of an utter inability to
say anything to the point. To put myself in a nutshell, I suppose I'm
simply a working man; I have his virtues and I have his defects. I'm a
very common fellow."
"Do you call yourself a very common fellow because you really believe
yourself to be one, or because you are weakly tempted to disfigure your
rather flattering catalogue with a great final blot?"
"I'm sure I don't know. You show more subtlety in that one question than
I have shown in my whole string of affirmations. You women are strong on
asking witty questions. Seriously, I believe I _am_ a common fellow. I
wouldn't make the admission to every one though. But to you, Miss Moore,
who sit there under your parasol as impartial as the Muse of History, to
you I own the truth. I'm no man of genius. There is something I miss;
some final distinction I lack; you may call it what you please. Perhaps
it's humility. Perhaps you can find it in Ruskin, somewhere. Perhaps
it's patience--perhaps it's imagination. I'm vulgar, Miss Moore. I'm the
vulgar son of vulgar people. I use the word, of course, in its strictest
sense. So much I grant you at the outset, and then I walk ahead."
"Have you any sisters?"
"Not a sister; and no brothers, nor cousins, nor uncles, nor aunts."
"And you sail for Europe to-morrow?"
"To-morrow, at ten o'clock."
"To be away how long?"
"As long as I possibly can. Five years if possible."
"What do you expect to do in those five years?"
"Study."
"Nothing but study?"
"It will all come back to that, I fancy. I hope to enjoy myself
reasonably, and to look at the world as I go. But I must not waste time;
I'm growing old."
"Where are you going?"
"To Berlin. I wanted to get letters from your brother."
"Have you money? Are you well off?"
"Well off? Not I, no. I'm poor. I travel on a little money that has just
come to me from an unexpected quarter: an old debt owing my father. It
will take me to Germany and keep me for six months. After that I shall
work my way."
"Are you happy? Are you contented?"
"Just now I'm pretty comfortable, thank you."
"But will you be so when you get to Berlin?"
"I don't promise to be contented; but I'm pretty sure to be happy."
"Well!" said Adela, "I sincerely hope you may be."
"Amen!" said Ludlow.
Of what more was said at this moment, no record may be given. The reader
has been put into possession of the key of our friends' conversation; it
is only needful to say that substantially upon this key, it was
prolonged for half an hour more. As the minutes elapsed, Adela found
herself drifting further and further away from her anchorage. When at
last she compelled herself to consult her watch, and remind her
companion that there remained but just time enough for them to reach
home, in anticipation of her brother's arrival, she knew that she was
rapidly floating seaward. As she descended the hill at her companion's
side, she felt herself suddenly thrilled by an acute temptation. Her
first instinct was to close her eyes upon it, in the trust that when she
opened them again it would have vanished; but she found that it was not
to be so uncompromisingly dismissed. It importuned her so effectually,
that before she had walked a mile homeward, she had succumbed to it, or
had at least given it the pledge of that quickening of the heart which
accompanies a bold resolution. This little sacrifice allowed her no
breath for idle words, and she accordingly advanced with a bent and
listening head. Ludlow marched along, with no apparent diminution of his
habitual buoyancy of mien, talking as fast and as loud as at the outset.
He adventured a prophecy that Mr. Moore would not have returned, and
charged Adela with a humorous message of regrets. Adela had begun by
wondering whether the approach of their separation had wrought within
him any sentimental depression at all commensurate with her own, with
that which sealed her lips and weighed upon her heart; and now she was
debating as to whether his express declaration that he felt "awfully
blue" ought necessarily to remove her doubts. Ludlow followed up this
declaration with a very pretty review of the morning, and a sober
valedictory which, whether intensely felt or not, struck Adela as at
least nobly bare of flimsy compliments. He might be a common fellow--but
he was certainly a very uncommon one. When they reached the garden gate,
it was with a fluttering heart that Adela scanned the premises for some
accidental sign of her brothers presence. She felt that there would be
an especial fitness in his not having returned. She led the way in. The
hall table was bare of his hat and overcoat. The only object it
displayed was Mr. Perkins's card, which Adela had deposited there on her
exit. All that was represented by that little white ticket seemed a
thousand miles away. Finally, Mr. Moore's absence from his study was
conclusive against his return.
As Adela went back thence into the drawing-room, she simply shook her
head at Ludlow, who was standing before the fire-place; and as she did
so, she caught her reflection in the mantel-glass. "Verily," she said to
herself, "I have travelled far." She had pretty well unlearned the
repose of the Veres of Vere. But she was to break with it still more
completely. It was with a singular hardihood that she prepared to redeem
the little pledge which had been extorted from her on her way home. She
felt that there was no trial to which her generosity might now be called
which she would not hail with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, her generosity
was not likely to be challenged; although she nevertheless had the
satisfaction of assuring herself at this moment that, like the mercy of
the Lord, it was infinite. Should she satisfy herself of her friend's?
or should she leave it delightfully uncertain? These had been the terms
of what has been called her temptation, at the foot of the hill. But
inasmuch as Adela was by no means strictly engaged in the pursuit of
pleasure, and as the notion of a grain of suffering was by no means
repugnant to her, she had resolved to obtain possession of the one
essential fact of her case, even though she should be at heavy costs to
maintain it.
"Well, I have very little time," said Ludlow; "I must get my dinner and
pay my bill and drive to the train." And he put out his hand.
Adela gave him her own, and looked him full in the eyes. "You are in a
great hurry," said she.
"It's not I who am in a hurry. It's my confounded destiny. It's the
train and the steamer."
"If you really wished to stay you wouldn't be bullied by the train and
the steamer."
"Very true--very true. But _do_ I really wish to stay?"
"That's the question. That's what I want to know."
"You ask difficult questions, Miss Moore."
"I mean they shall be difficult."