Strangely enough, Sylvia and Austin were perhaps less happy at this time
than any of the other dwellers at the Homestead. After the first day, the
week in New York had been a period of great happiness to both of them,
and Austin had proved such an immediate success, both among Sylvia's
friends and Uncle Mat's business associates, that both were immensely
gratified. But after the return to the country, matters seemed to go less
and less well. During the year in which they had "loved and longed in
secret," each had exalted the other to the position of a martyr and a
saint. The intimacy of their engagement was rapidly revealing the fact
that, after all, they were merely ordinary human beings, and the
discovery was something of a shock to both. Austin had thought over Uncle
Mat's advice, and found it good; he was gentle and considerate, and
showed himself perfectly willing to submit to Sylvia's wishes in most
important decisions, but he refused to be dictated to in little things.
She was so accustomed, by this time, to having her slightest whim not
only respected, but admired, by all the adoring Gray family, and most of
her world at large besides, that she was apt to behave like a spoiled
child when Austin thwarted her. She nearly always had to admit,
afterwards, that he had been right, and this did not make it any easier
for her. His "incessant obstinacy," as she called it, was rapidly
"getting on her nerves," while it seemed to him that they could never
meet that she did not have some fresh grievance, or disagree with him
radically about something. She wanted him at her side all the time; he
had a thousand other interests. She saw no reason why, after they were
married, they should live in the country all the year, and every year; he
saw no reason why they should do anything else. And so it went with every
subject that arose.
If Sylvia had been less idle, she would have had no time to think about
"nerves." But the manservant and his wife whom she had installed in the
little brick house were well-trained and competent to the last degree,
and the ménage ran like clock-work without any help from her. She was
debarred from riding or driving alone, and the girls at the farm had no
time to go with her, and it was still an almost unheard-of thing in that
locality for a woman to run a motor. She could not fill an hour a day
working in her little garden, and she had no special taste for sewing.
The only thing for her to do seemed to be to sit around and wait for
Austin to appear, and Austin was not only very busy, but extremely
absorbed in his work. It was impossible for him to come to see her every
night, and when he did come, he was so thoroughly and wholesomely tired
and sleepy, that his visits were short. On Sundays he had more leisure;
but Mr. and Mrs. Gray seemed to take it for granted that Sylvia would
still go to church with them in the morning, and spend the rest of the
day at their house. She could not bring herself to the point of
disappointing them, though she rebelled inwardly; but she complained to
Austin, as they were walking back to her house together after a day spent
in this manner, that she never saw him alone at all.
"It's not only the family," she said, "but Peter, and Fred, and Mr. and
Mrs. Elliott are around all the time, and to-day there were Ruth and
Frank and those two fussy babies needing something done for them every
single minute besides! It was perfect bedlam. I want you to myself once
in a while."
"You can have me to yourself, for good and all, whenever you want me,"
replied Austin.
This was so undeniable a statement that Sylvia changed the subject
abruptly.
"There is no earthly need of your working so hard, and you know it."
"But Sylvia, I like to work; and I'm awfully anxious to make a success of
things, now that we've got such a wonderful start at last."
"Are you more interested in this stupid old farm than you are in me?"
"Why, Sylvia, it isn't a 'stupid old farm' to me! It's the place my
great-grandfather built, and that all the Grays have lived in and loved
for four generations! I thought you liked it, too."
"I do, but I'm jealous of it."
"You ought not to be. You know that there's nothing in the world so dear
to me as you are."
"Then let me pay for another hired man, so that you'll have more time for
yourself--and for me."
"Indeed, I will not. You'll never pay for another thing on this farm if I
can help it. No one could be more grateful than I am for all you've done,
but the time is over for that."
"Won't you come in?" she asked, as, they reached her garden, and she
noticed that he stopped at the gate.
"Not to-night--we've had a good walk together, and you know I have to get
up pretty early in the morning. Good-night, dear," and he raised her
fingers to his lips.
She snatched them away, lifting her lovely face. "Oh, Austin!" she cried,
"how can you be so calm and cold? I think sometimes you're made of stone!
If you must go, don't say good-night like that--act as if you were made
of flesh and blood!"
"I'm acting in the only sane way for both of us. If you don't like it, I
had better not come at all."
And he went home without giving her even the caress he had originally
intended, and slept soundly and well all night; but Sylvia tossed about
for hours, and finally, at dawn, cried herself to sleep.
The first serious disagreement, however, came just before Katherine's
graduation. Austin, who loved to dance, was looking forward to his
clever sister's "ball" with a great deal of pride and pleasure, and was
genuinely amazed when Sylvia objected violently to his going, saying
that as she could not dance, and as all the rest of the family would be
there, Katherine did not need him, and that he had much better stay at
home with her.
"But, Sylvia," protested Austin, "I _want_ to go. I'm awfully proud of
Katherine, and I wouldn't miss it for anything. Why don't you come, too?
I don't see any reason why you shouldn't."
"Of course you don't. You weren't brought up among people who know what's
proper in such matters."
"I know it, Sylvia. But if that's going to trouble you, you should have
thought of it sooner. My knowledge of etiquette is very slight, I admit,
but my common-sense tells me that announcing one's engagement should be
equivalent to stopping all former observances of mourning."
"I didn't want to announce it. It was you that insisted upon that, too."
"Well, you know why," said Austin with some meaning.
"All right, then," burst out Sylvia angrily, "go to your old ball. You
seem to think you are an authority on everything. I'm sure I don't want
to go, anyway, and dance with a lot of awkward farmers who smell of the
cow-stable. I shouldn't think you would care about it either, now that
you've had a chance to see things properly done."
"I care a good deal about my sister, Sylvia, and about my friends here,
too. There are no better people on the face of the earth--I've heard you
say so, yourself! It's only a chance that I'm a little less awkward than
some of the others."
The result of this conversation was that Austin did not go near Sylvia
for several days. He was deeply hurt, but that was not all. He began to
wonder, even more than he ever had before, whether his comparative
poverty, his lack of education, his farmer family and traditions and
friends, were not very real barriers between himself and a girl like
Sylvia. What was more, he questioned whether a strong, passionate,
determined man, who felt that he knew his own best course and proposed to
take it, could ever make such a delicate, self-willed little creature
happy, even if there were no other obstacles in their path than those of
warring disposition.
Something of his old sullenness of manner returned, and his mother,
after worrying in silence over him for a time finally asked him what the
trouble was. At first he denied that there was anything, next stubbornly
refused to tell her what it was, and at last, like a hurt schoolboy,
blurted out his grievance. To his amazement and grief, Mrs. Gray took
Sylvia's part. This was the last straw. He jerked himself away from her,
and went out, slamming the front door after him. It was evening, and he
was tired and hot and dirty. The rest of the family had almost finished
supper when he reached the table, an unexpected delay having arisen in
the barn, and he had eaten the unappetizing scraps that remained
hurriedly, without taking time to shave and bathe and change his clothes.
He had never gone to Sylvia in this manner before; but he strode down the
path to her house with a bitter satisfaction in his heart that she was to
see him when he was looking and feeling his worst, and that she would
have to take him as he was, or not at all. He found her in her garden
cutting roses, a picture of dainty elegance in her delicate white
fabrics. She greeted him somewhat coolly, as if to punish him for his
lack of deference to her on his last visit, and his subsequent neglect,
and glanced at his costume with a disapproval which she was at no pains
to conceal. Then with a sarcasm and lack of tact which she had never
shown before, she gave voice to her general dissatisfaction.
"_Really, Austin_, don't come near me, please; you're altogether too
_barny_. Don't you think you're carrying your devotion to the nobility of
labor a little too far, and your devotion to me--if you still have
any--not quite far enough? You're slipping straight back to your old
slovenly, disagreeable ways--without the excuse that you formerly had
that they were practically the only ways open to you. If you're too proud
to accept my money and the freedom that it can give you, and so stubborn
that you make a scene and then won't come near me for days because I
refuse to go to a cheap little public dance with you--"
She got no farther. Austin interrupted her with a violence of which she
would not have believed him capable.
"_If_! If you're too stubborn to go with me to my sister's _graduation
ball_, and too proud to accept the fact that I'm a _farmer_, with a
farmer's friends and family and work, and that _I'm damned glad of it_,
and won't give them up, or be supported by any woman on the face of the
earth, or let her make a pet lap-dog of me, you can go straight back to
the life you came from, for all me! You seem to prefer it, after all, and
I believe it's all you deserve. If you don't--don't ask my forgiveness
for the things you've said the last two times I've seen you, and say
_you'll go to that party_ with me, and be just as darned pleasant to
every one there as you know how to be--and promise to stop quarrelling,
and keep your promise--I'll never come near you again. You're making my
life utterly miserable. You won't marry me, and yet you are bound to have
me make love to you all the time, when I'm doing my best to keep my hands
off you--and I'd rather be shot _than_ marry you, on the terms you're
putting up to me at present! You've got two days to think it over in, and
if you don't send for me before it's time to start for the ball, and tell
me you're sorry, you won't get another chance to send for me again as
long as you live. I'm either not worth having at all, or I'm worth
treating better than you've seen fit to do lately!"
He left her, without even looking at her again, in a white heat of fury.
But before the hot dawn of another June day had given him an excuse to
get up and try to work off his feelings with the most strenuous labor
that he could find, he had spent a horrible sleepless night which he was
never to forget as long as he lived. His anger gave way first to misery,
and then to a panic of fear. Suppose she took him literally--though he
had meant every word when he said it--suppose he lost her? What would the
rest of his life be worth to him, alone, haunted, not only by his
senseless folly in casting away such a precious treasure, but by his
ingratitude, his presumption, and his own unworthiness? A dozen times he
started towards her house, only to turn back again. She _hadn't_ been
fair. They _couldn't_ be happy that way. If he gave in now, he would have
to do it all the rest of his life, and she would despise him for it. As
the time which he had stipulated went by, and no message came, he
suffered more and more intensely--hoped, savagely, that she was
suffering, too, and decided that she could not be, or that he would have
heard from her; but resolved, more and more decidedly, with every hour
that passed, that he would fight this battle out to the bitter end.
It was even later than usual when he came in on the night of the ball,
and when he entered, every one in the house was hurrying about in the
inevitable confusion which precedes a "great occasion." Edith, the only
one who seemed to be ready, was standing in the middle of the
living-room, fresh and glowing as a yellow rose in her bright dress,
Peter beside her buttoning her gloves. She glanced at her grimy brother
with a feeble interest.
"Mercy, Austin, you'd better hurry! We're going to leave in five
minutes."
"Well, _I'm_ not going to leave in five minutes! I've got to get out of
these clothes and have a bath and it's hardly necessary to tell me all
that--one glance at you is sufficient," said Edith flippantly.
"Well, I can come on later alone, I suppose. Where's mother?"
"Still dressing. Why?"
"Do you happen to know whether--Sylvia's been over here this
afternoon--or sent a telephone message or a note?"
"I'm perfectly sure she hasn't. Why?"
"Nothing," said Austin grimly, and left the room.
Like most people who try to dress in a hurry when they are angry, Austin
found that everything went wrong. There was no hot water left, and he
had to heat some himself for shaving while he took a cold bath; his
mother usually got his clothes ready for him when she knew he was
detained, but this time she had apparently been too rushed herself. He
couldn't find his evening shoes; he couldn't get his studs into his
stiff shirt until he had had a struggle that raised his temperature
several degrees higher than it was already; the big, jolly teamful
departed while he was rummaging through his top drawer for fresh
handkerchiefs; and he was vainly trying to adjust his white tie
satisfactorily, when a knock at the door informed him that he was not
alone in the house after all; he said "come in" crossly, and without
turning, and went on with his futile attempts.
"Has every one else gone? I didn't know I was so late--but I've been all
through the house downstairs calling, and couldn't get any answer. Let me
do that for you--let's take a fresh one--"
He wheeled sharply around, and found Sylvia standing beside
him--Sylvia, dressed in shell-pink, shimmering satin and foamy lace,
with pearls in her dark hair and golden slippers on her feet, her neck
and arms white and bare and gleaming. With a little sound that was half
a sob, and half a cry of joy, she flung her arms around his neck and
drew his face down to hers.
"Austin--I'm--I'm sorry--I do--beg your forgiveness from the bottom of my
heart. I promise--and I'll keep my promise--to be reasonable--and
kind--and fair--to stop making you miserable. It's been all my fault that
we've quarrelled, every bit--and we never will again. I've come to tell
you--not just that I'll go to the party with you, gladly, if you're still
willing to take me, but that there's nothing that matters to me in the
whole world--except you--"
The first touch of Sylvia's arms set Austin's brain seething; after the
hungry misery of the past few days, it acted like wine offered to a
starving man, suddenly snatched and drunk. Her words, her tears, her
utter self-abandonment of voice and manner, annihilated in one instant
the restraint in which he had held himself for months. He caught the
delicate little creature to him with all his strength, burying his face
in the white fragrance of her neck. He forgot everything in the world
except that she was in his arms--alone with him--that nothing was to come
between them again as long as they lived. He could feel her heart beating
against his under the soft lace on her breast, her cool cheeks and mouth
growing warm under the kisses that he rained on them until his own lips
stung. At first she returned his embrace with an ardor that equalled his
own; then, as if conscious that she was being carried away by the might
of a power which she could neither measure nor control, she tried to turn
her face away and strove to free herself.
"Don't," she panted; "let me go! You--you-hurt me, Austin."
"I can't help it--I shan't let you go! I'm going to kiss you this time
until I get ready to stop."
For a moment she struggled vainly. Austin's arms tightened about her like
bands of steel. She gave a little sigh, and lifted her face again.
"I can't seem to--kiss back any more," she whispered, "but if this is
what you want--if it will make up to you for these last weeks--it doesn't
matter whether you hurt or not."
Every particle of resistance had left her. Austin had wished for an
unconditional surrender, and he had certainly attained it. There could
never again be any question of which should rule. She had come and laid
her sweet, proud, rebellious spirit at his very feet, begging his
forgiveness that it had not sooner recognized its master. A wonderful
surge of triumph at his victory swept over him--and then, suddenly--he
was sick and cold with shame and contrition. He released her, so abruptly
that she staggered, catching hold of a chair to steady herself, and
raising one small clenched hand to her lips, as if to press away their
smarting. As she did so, he saw a deep red mark on her bare white arm. He
winced, as if he had been struck, at the gesture and what it disclosed,
but it needed neither to show him that she was bruised and hurt from the
violence of his embrace; and dreadful as he instantly realized this to
be, it seemed to matter very little if he could only learn that she was
not hurt beyond all healing by divining the desire and intention which
for one sacrilegious moment had almost mastered him.
A gauzy scarf which she had carried when she entered the room had fallen
to the floor. He stooped and picked it up, and stood looking at it,
running it through his hands, his head bent. It was white and sheer, a
mere gossamer--he must have stepped on it, for in one place it was torn,
in another slightly soiled. Sylvia, watching him, holding her breath,
could see the muscles of his white face growing tenser and tenser around
his set mouth, and still he did not glance at her or speak to her. At
last he unfolded it to its full size, and wrapped it about her, his eyes
giving her the smile which his lips could not.
"Nothing matters to me in the whole world either--except you," he said
brokenly. "I think these last few--dreadful days--have shown us both how
much we need each other, and that the memory of them will keep us closer
together all our lives. If there's any question of forgiveness between
us, it's all on my side now, not yours, and I don't think I can--talk
about it now. But I'll never forget how you came to me to-night, and,
please God, some day I'll be more worthy of--of your love and--and your
_trust_ than I've shown myself now. Until I am--" He stopped, and,
lifting her arm, kissed the bruise which his own roughness had made
there. "What can I do--to make that better?" he managed to say.
"It didn't hurt--much--before--and it's all healed--now," she said,
smiling up at him; "didn't your mother ever 'kiss the place to make it
well' when you were a little boy, and didn't it always work like a charm?
It won't show at all, either, under my glove."
"Your glove?" he asked stupidly; and then, suddenly remembering what he
had entirely forgotten--"Oh--we were going to a ball together. You came
to tell me you would, after all. But surely you won't want to now--"
"Why not? We can take the motor--we won't be so very late--the others
went in the carryall, you know."
He drew a long breath, and looked away from her. "All right," he said at
last. "Go downstairs and get your cloak, if you left it there. I'll be
with you in a minute."
She obeyed, without a word, but waited so long that she grew alarmed, and
finally, unable to endure her anxiety any longer, she went back upstairs.
Austin's door was open into the hall, but it was dark in his room, and,
genuinely frightened, she groped her way towards the electric switch. In
doing so she stumbled against the bed, and her hand fell on Austin's
shoulder. He was kneeling there, his whole body shaking, his head buried
in his arms. Instantly she was on her knees beside him.
"My darling boy, what is it? Austin, _don't_! You'll break my heart."
"The marvel is--if I haven't--just now. I told your uncle that I was
afraid I would some time--that I knew I hadn't any right to you. But I
didn't think--that even I was bad enough--to fail you--like _this_--"
"You _haven't_ failed me--you _have_ a right to me--I never loved you
so much in all my life--" she hurried on, almost incoherently, searching
for words of comfort. "Dearest--will it make you feel any better--if I
say I'll marry you--right away?"
"What do you mean? When?"
"To-night, if you like. Oh, Austin, I love you so that it doesn't matter
a bit--whether I'm afraid or not. The only thing that really counts--is
to have you happy! And since I've realized that--I find that I'm not
afraid of anything in the whole world--and that I want to belong to you
as much--and as soon--as you can possibly want to have me!"
* * * * *
It was many months before Hamstead stopped talking about the "Graduation
Ball of that year." It surpassed, to an almost extraordinary degree, any
that had ever been held there. But the event upon which the village best
loved to dwell was the entrance of Sylvia Cary, the loveliest vision it
had ever beheld, on Austin Gray's arm, when all the other guests were
already there, and everyone had despaired of their coming. Following the
unwritten law in country places, which decrees that all persons engaged,
married, or "keeping company," must have their "first dance" together,
she gave that to Austin. Then Thomas and James, Frank and Fred, Peter,
and even Mr. Gray and Mr. Elliott, all claimed their turn, and by that
time Austin was waiting impatiently again. But country parties are long,
and before the night was over, all the men and boys, who had been
watching her in church, and bowing when they met her in the road, and
seizing every possible chance to speak to her when they went to the
Homestead on errands--or excuses for errands--had demanded and been given
a dance. She was lighter than thistledown--indeed, there were moments
when she seemed scarcely a woman at all, but a mere essence of fragile
beauty and sweetness and graciousness. It had been generally conceded
beforehand that the honors of the ball would all go to Edith, but even
Edith herself admitted that she took a second place, and that she was
glad to take it.
Dawn was turning the quiet valley and distant mountains into a riotous
rosy glory, when, as they drove slowly up to her house, Austin gently
raised the gossamer scarf which had blown over Sylvia's face, half-hiding
it from him. She looked up with a smile to answer his.
"Are you very tired, dear?"
"Not at all--just too happy to talk much, that's all."
"Sylvia--"
"Yes, darling--"
"You know I have planned to start West with Peter three days after
Sally's wedding--"
"Yes--"
"Would you rather I didn't go?"
"No; I'm glad you're going--I mean, I'm glad you have decided to keep to
your plan."
"What makes you think I have?"
"Because, being you, you couldn't do otherwise."
"But when I come back--"
Her fingers tightened in his.
"I want two months all alone with you in this little house," he
whispered. "Send the servants away--it won't be very hard to do the
work--for just us two--I'll help. That's--that's--_marriage_--a big
wedding and a public honeymoon--and--all that go with them--are just a
cheap imitation--of the real thing. Then, later on, if you like, this
first winter, we'll go away together--to Spain or Italy or the South of
France--or wherever you wish--but first--we'll begin together here. Will
you marry me--the first of September, Sylvia?"
Austin drove home in the broad daylight of four o'clock on a June
morning. Then, after the motor was put away, he took his working clothes
over his arm, went to the river, and plunged in. When he came back, with
damp hair, cool skin, and a heart singing with peace and joy, he found
Peter, whistling, starting towards the barn with his milk-pail over his
arm. It was the beginning of a new day.