There was a new man, who had arrived the night before. He was named

Pendleton, and Sylvia found herself placed next to him. She suspected

that he had arranged this, and was bored by the prospect, and purposely

talked with Charlie Peyton on her other side. Towards the end of the

meal a servant came in and whispered to the hostess, who rose suddenly

with the exclamation, “Frank Shirley is here!” Amid the general silence

that fell Sylvia began suddenly to eat with assiduity.

The hostess went out, and returned after a minute or so with Frank at

her heels. “Do sit down,” she was saying. “At least have some of this

sherbet.”

“I’ve had my luncheon,” he replied; “I supposed you’d have finished.”

But he seated himself at the table, as requested. There was a general

pause, everybody expecting some explanation; but he volunteered none.

Opposite to Sylvia was Belle Johnston, an insipid young person who had a

reputation for wit, for which she made other people pay. “Did you think

it looked like rain, Mr. Shirley?” she inquired. Sylvia could have

destroyed her.

“The weather is very pleasant,” said Frank. No one could be sure whether

he was imperturbable, or had missed the jest altogether.

Harriet, seeing her friend’s alarming appetite and discomfort, stepped

in now to save the situation. “I hope you brought me a message from your

sister,” she remarked. “I am expecting one.”

But Frank would have none of any such devices. “I’m sorry,” he said,

“but I haven’t brought it.”

Sylvia was furious. Had he no tact, no social sense at all—not even any

common gratitude? He ought to have waited outside, where he would have

been less conspicuous; instead of sitting there, dumb as an oyster,

looking at her and obviously waiting for her! Sooner or later everyone

must notice.

With a sudden impulse she turned to the man at her side. “I am sorry you

came so late,” she said.

“I am more than sorry,” he replied, brightening instantly.

“I really must go home this afternoon,” she said.

He was encouraged by her tone of regret. “I think I will tell you

something,” he said.

“Well?”

“I came here on purpose to meet you. I was visiting my friends, the

Allens, at Thanksgiving, and all the men there were talking of you.”

This, of course, was ancient history to Sylvia. “What were they saying?”

she asked—and stole a glance at Frank.

“They said you’d never let a man go without hurting him. At least, not

if you thought him worth while.”

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, astonished and flattered. “I wonder that you

weren’t afraid to meet me!”

“I was amused,” answered the other. “I thought to myself, I’d like to

see her hurt me.”

Sylvia lifted her delicate eyebrows and gave him a slow, quiet stare,

four-fifths scorn and one-fifth challenge.

“Gad!” he exclaimed. “You are interesting for a fact! When you look like

that!”

“Not otherwise?” she inquired, now wholly scornful.

“Oh, you’re not the most beautiful woman I ever saw! Nor the cleverest!”

“Do not challenge me like that.”

“Why not?” he laughed.

“You might regret it.”

“It would be a good adventure—I’d be willing to pay the price to see the

game. I admire a woman who knows her business.”

So the banter continued; the man displaying his cleverness and Sylvia

casting upon him glances of mockery, of contempt, half veiling curiosity

and interest. He, of course, being secretly convinced of his own

irresistibility, was noting these glances and speculating about them,

thrilled by them without realizing it, persuading himself that the girl

was really coming to admire him. This was a kind of encounter which had

occurred, not once, but a hundred times in Sylvia’s career, and usually

it meant nothing in particular to her. But now it brought a reckless

joy, because of the shock it was giving to that other man—the terrible

man who sat across the way, his eyes boring into her very soul!

§ 18

When the luncheon was over, Sylvia made her way to Harriet Atkinson and

caught her by the arm. “Harriet!” she exclaimed. “You must help me!”

“What?” whispered the other.

“I can’t see him!”

“But why not?”

“He wants to lecture me, and I won’t stand it! I’m going into the

garden—take him somewhere else—you must!” Then, seeing Frank making

toward her, she gave Harriet a vicious pinch, and fled from the room.

There was a summer-house in the garden at the far end, and thither she

went upon flying feet.

I was never sure how it happened—whether, as Harriet always vowed, she

tried to hold Frank and could not, or whether she turned traitor to her

friend. At any rate Sylvia had been there not more than a minute, and

had scarcely begun to get control of herself, when she heard a step, and

looking up, saw Frank Shirley coming down the path.

There was but one door to the summer-house—and he soon occupied that.

“Go away!” she cried. “Go away!” (That was all that was left of her

_savoir faire_!)

He stopped. “Miss Castleman,” he said—and his voice was hard, “I came

here to see you. But now I’m sorry I came.”

The garrison rallied as to a trumpet-call. “That is too bad, Mr.

Shirley,” she said, with appalling _hauteur_. “But you know you do not

have to stay an instant.”

He gazed at her in doubt for a moment. Her heart was pounding and the

color flooding her face. “I don’t believe you know what you are doing!”

he exclaimed.

“Really!” she replied, witheringly. “Do you?”

“No,” he went on, “I don’t understand you at all. But I simply _will_

find out!”

He strode towards her. She shrank into the seat, but he caught her

hands. For a moment she resisted; but he held fast, and from his hands

she felt a current as of fire, flowing through all her veins.

Slowly he drew her to her feet. “Sylvia!” he whispered. “Sylvia! Look at

me!”

She obeyed him instinctively, and their eyes met. “You love me!” he

exclaimed. She could hear his quick breathing. She felt herself sinking

towards him. She felt his arms about her, his breath upon her cheek.

“I love you!” he murmured. And she closed her eyes, and he kissed her

again and again. In his kisses it seemed to her that she would melt

away.

She was exultant and happy. The testimony of his love was rapture to

her. But then suddenly came a fear which they had inculcated in her. All

the women who had ever talked to her on the problem of the

male-creature—all agreed that nothing was so fatal as to allow the

taking of “liberties.” Also there came sudden shame. She began to

struggle. “You must not kiss me! It is not right!”

“But, Sylvia!” he protested. “I love you!”

“Oh, stop!” she pleaded. “Stop!”

“You love me!” he whispered.

“Please, please stop!”

A gentle pressure would have held her, but she felt that he was

releasing her—all but one hand. She sank down upon the seat, trembling.

“Oh, you ought not to have done it!” she cried.

He asked, “Why not?”

“No man has ever done that to me before!” The thought of what he had

done, the memory of his lips upon her cheek, sent the blood flying there

in hot waves; she began to sob: “No, no! You should not have done it!”

“Sylvia!” he pleaded, surprised by her vehemence. “Don’t you realize

that you love me?”

“I don’t know! I’m afraid! I must have time!” She was weeping

convulsively now. “You will never respect me again!”

“You must not say such a thing as that! It is not true!”

“You will go away and remember it, and you will despise me!”

His voice was calm and very soothing. “Sylvia,” he said, “I have told

you that I love you. And I believe that you love me. If that is so, I

had a perfect right to kiss you, and you had a perfect right to let me

kiss you.”

There he was, sensible as ever; Sylvia found the storm of her emotion

dying away. She had time to recall one of the maxims of Lady Dee: “A

woman should never let a man see her weeping. It makes her cheeks pale

and her nose red.” She resolved that she would stay in the protecting

shadows of the summer-house until after he had departed.

§ 19

She went home; and at the dinner-table she was telling some of the

adventures of the house party. “Oh, by the way,” she said, carelessly,

“I met Frank Shirley.”

“Really?” exclaimed Mrs. Castleman. “Those poor, unfortunate people!”

“He must be quite a man now,” said Aunt Varina. “How old is he?”

“About twenty-one,” said the mother. Sylvia was amazed; she had not

thought definitely of his age, but he had seemed a mature man to her.

“I see him now and then,” put in the Major. “He comes to town. Not a

bad-looking chap.”

“He asked if he might call,” said Sylvia. “I told him, Yes. Was that

right, Papa?”

“Why, certainly,” was the reply.

“He seems a very shy, silent kind of man,” she added. “He wasn’t sure

that he’d be welcome.”

“Why, my dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Castleman. “I’m sure we’ve never made any

difference in our treatment of the Shirleys!”

“Bob Shirley’s children will always be welcome to my home, so long as

they behave themselves,” declared the father.

And so Sylvia left the matter, content with their attitude. Frank was

wrong in his estimate of her family.

Two days later there came a negro man, riding a mule and carrying a bag,

with a note from Frank. He begged her to accept this present of quail,

because she had lost so much of her hunting time, and Charlie Peyton’s

aim had been so bad. Sylvia read the note, and got from it a painful

shock. The handwriting was boyish and the manner of expression crude.

She was used to leisure-class stationery, with her monogram in gold at

the top, and this was written upon a piece of cheap paper. Somehow it

made the whole matter seem unreal and incredible to her. She found

herself trying to recall how he looked.

So she went to sleep; and awakening early the next morning, waiting for

the agreeable tinkle of the approaching coffee-cup—there suddenly he

came to her! Just as real as he had been in the summer-house, with his

breath upon her cheek! The delicious, blinding ecstasy possessed her

again—and then fresh humiliation at the memory of his kisses! Oh, why

did he not come to see her—instead of leaving her the prey of her fancy?

She could not escape from the idea that she had lost his respect by

flinging herself at his head—by permitting him to kiss her.

The next morning came the negro again, this time with a great bunch of

golden-rod. “What a present!” exclaimed the whole family; but Sylvia

understood and was happy. “It’s because of my hair,” she told the

others, laughing. It must be that he loved her, despite her

indiscretions!

He wrote that he was coming to see her that evening; and that because of

the length of the ride, he would accept her invitation and come to

dinner. So Sylvia braced herself for the ordeal.

She dressed very simply, so as not to attract attention. Uncle

Mandeville was there, and two girl cousins from Louisville, visiting the

family, and two of the Bishop’s boys and one of Barry Chilton’s, who

dropped in at the last moment to see them. That was the way at Castleman

Hall—there were never less than a dozen people at any meal, and the cook

allowed for twenty. To all this crowd Sylvia had to introduce her

strange new conquest, ignoring their glances of inquiry and parrying

their mischievous shafts.

I must let you see this family at dinner. At the head of the table sits

the Major, with gray hair and a gray imperial, wearing his black vest

cut so low that he can plead it is evening dress; still adhering

valiantly to the custom of his fathers, and carving the roast for his

growing family, while the littlest girls, who come last, follow each

portion with hungry eyes and count the number intervening. At the foot

sits Mrs. Castleman, serving the salad and dessert, her ample figure

robed in satin. “Miss Margaret” is just at that stage of her life, after

the birth of the son and heir, when she has definitely abandoned the

struggle with an expanding waistline. When I met her, some years later,

she weighed two hundred and eighty pounds, and was the best-natured and

most comically inefficient human soul I have ever encountered in my

life.

There is Aunt Varina Tuis, humble and inconspicuous, weary after a day

of trotting up and down stairs after the housekeeper, to see that the

embroidered napkins were counted before they went to the laundry, that

the drawing-room furniture was dusted, the dead flowers taken out of the

dining-room, the fleas in the servants’ quarters kept in subjection.

Mrs. Tuis’ queer little voice is seldom heard at the dinner-table,

unless she is appealed to in some matter of family history: whom this

one married, whom that one had been engaged to, whether or not it was

true that some neighbor’s grandfather had kept a grocery store, as

rumored.

Then there is Uncle Mandeville, home to recuperate from a spree in New

Orleans; enormous in every direction, rosy-faced and prosperous, with a

resounding laugh and an endless flow of fun. Beside him sits Celeste,

the next daughter, presenting a curious contrast to Sylvia, with her

restless black eyes, her positive manner and worldly viewpoint. There

are the two cousins from Louisville, healthy and radiant, and the two

Chilton boys, Clive and Harley, and Barry’s boy, who is a giant like

Uncle Mandeville, and whenever he laughs, makes the cut glass to rattle

on the buffet.

All this family hunts in one pack. They know all each other’s affairs,

and take an interest in them, and stand together against the rest of the

world. They are a noisy crew, good-humored, careless, but with hot

tempers and little control of them—so that when their interests clash

and they get on one another’s toes, they quarrel as violently as before

they loved. Their conversation is apt to be bewildering to a stranger,

for they seldom talk about general questions, having a whole arcanum of

family allusions not easily understood. At this meal, for example, they

are merry for half an hour over the latest tales of the doings of an

older brother of Clive and Harley, who has married a girl with rich

parents, but is too proud to take a dollar from them, and is forcing his

bride to play at decent poverty. When the provisions run out they visit

the Bishop, or the Major, or Uncle Barry, as may be most convenient, and

go off with an automobile-load of hams and sausage-puddings and pickles

and preserves. How many jokes there are, and what gales of merriment go

round the table! The Bishop’s son the first kleptomaniac in the family!

Barry’s young giant declaring that a single smile from the bride cost

his father a cow and calf! The little girls, Peggy and Maria, chiming in

with their tale of how the predatory couple found a lone chicken

foraging in the rose-garden, confiscated it, carried it off under

Basil’s coat, tied it by the leg under the piazza at the back of their

house in town—and then forgot it and let it starve to death!

Sylvia sat watching this tableful of care-free, rollicking people—the

men handsome, finely built, well-fed and well-groomed, the women

delicate, soft-skinned and exquisitely gowned—representing the best type

their civilization could produce. A pleasant scene it was, with snowy

damask cloth and bouquets of roses, precious old silver and quaint

hand-painted china, with a background of mahogany furniture and paneled

walls. She watched Frank in the midst of it, thinking of his home as

Harriet had pictured it—the people subdued and sombre, the stamp of

poverty upon everything. She was glad to see that he was able to fit

himself into the mood of this company, enjoying the sallies of fun and

pleasing those he talked to.

The house being full of young couples who wanted to be alone, Sylvia

took Frank into the library. She liked this room, with its red leather

furniture and cozy fireplace, and queer old book-cases with

diamond-shaped panes of glass. She liked it because the lights were on

the table, and no woman looks beautiful when lighted from over her head.

This may seem a small matter to you, but Sylvia had learned how much

depends upon detail. She remembered one of the maxims of Lady Dee: “Get

a man on your home-ground, where you can have things as you want them;

and then place your chair to show the best side of your face.”

These things I set down as Sylvia told them to me—a long time

afterwards, when we could laugh over them. It was a fact about her all

the way through, that whatever she did, good or bad, she knew why she

was doing it. In this she differed from a good many other women, who are

not honest, even with themselves, and who feel that things become vulgar

only when they are mentioned. The study of her own person and its charms

was of course the very essence of her rôle as a “belle.” At every stage

of her life she had been drilled and coached—how to dance, how to enter

a drawing-room, how to receive a compliment, how to toy with a suitor.

At Miss Abercrombie’s, the young ladies had an etiquette teacher who

gave them instructions in the most minute details of their deportment;

not to bend your body too much, but mainly your knees, when you sat

down; not to let your hands lie flat at your sides, but to turn your

little fingers gracefully out; never to hesitate or think of yourself

when entering a room, but to fix your thoughts upon some person, and

move towards that person with decision. Sylvia had needed this last

instruction especially, for in the beginning she had had a terrible time

entering rooms. It should be a comfort to some would-be belles to know

that Sylvia Castleman, who attained in the end to such eminence in her

profession, was at the outset a terrified child with shaking knees and

chattering teeth, who never would have gone anywhere of her own choice!

§ 20

Now she was ready to try out all these instructions upon Frank. The

scene was set and lighted, the curtain rose—but somehow there was a

hitch in the performance. Frank was moody again. He sat staring before

him, frowning somberly; and she looked at him in a confusion of

anxieties. He did not love her after all—she had simply seized upon him

and compelled his attention, and now he was longing to extricate

himself! Even if this were not true, it would soon come to that, for she

could think of nothing interesting to say, and he would be bored.

She racked her wits. What could she talk about to a man who knew none of

her “set,” who never went to balls or dinners, who could not conceivably

care about polite gossip? Why didn’t _he_ say something—the silent man!

What manners to take into company!

“I must make him look at me,” she resolved. So without saying a word,

she began taking a rose from her corsage and adjusting it in her hair.

The motion distracted him, and she saw that he was watching. She had

him!

“Is that in right?” she asked. Of course a _la France_ rose in perfectly

arranged hair is always “in right,” and Sylvia knew it. Her little

device failed abjectly, for Frank answered simply “Yes,” and began

staring into space again.

She tried once more, contenting herself with the barest necessities of

conversation. “Did you shoot those quail yourself?”

Then he turned. “Miss Sylvia, I have something I must say to you. I’ve

had time to think things over.” He paused.

Ah, now it was coming! He had had time to think things over—and he

called her “_Miss_ Sylvia!” Something cried out in her to make haste and

release him before he asked it. But she could not speak—she was as if

pinned by a lance.

He went on. “Miss Sylvia, I had made up my mind that love was not for

me. I knew that to women of my own class I was a man with a tainted

name—a convict’s son; and I would rather die than marry beneath me. So I

shut up my heart, and when I met a woman, I turned and went away—as I

tried to do with you. But you would not have it, and I could not resist

you. I’ve been amazed at the intensity of my own feelings; it’s

something I could not have dreamed of—and unless I’m mistaken, it’s been

the same with you.”

It was a bold man who could use words such as those to Sylvia. To what

merciless teasing he laid himself open! But she only drew a deep sigh of

relief. He still loved her!

“I forced myself to stay away,” he continued, without waiting for her to

answer. “I said, ‘I must not go near her again. I must run away

somewhere and get over it.’ And then again I said, ‘I can make her

happy—I will marry her.’ I said that, but I’m not going to do it.”

He paused. Oh, what a voice he had! Sylvia felt the blood ebbing and

flowing in her cheeks, pounding in her ears. She could not hear his

words very well—but he loved her!

“Sylvia,” he was saying, earnestly—as if half to convince himself—“we

must both of us wait. You must have time to consider what loving me

would mean. You have all these people—happy people; and I have nothing

like that in my life. You have this beautiful home, expensive

clothes—every luxury. But I am a poor man. I have only a mortgaged

plantation, with a mother and a brother and two sisters to share it. I

have no career—I have not even an education. All your uncles, your

cousins, your suitors, are college men, and I am a plain farmer. So I

face what seems to me the worst temptation a man could have. I see you,

and you are everything in the world that is desirable; and I believe

that I could win you and carry you away from here. My whole being cries

out, ‘Go and take her! She loves you! She wants you to!’ But instead, I

have to come here and say, ‘Think it over. Make sure of your feelings;

that it’s not simply a flush of excitement.’ You being the kind of

tenderhearted thing you are, it might so easily be a romantic imagining

about a man who’s apart from other men—one you feel sorry for and would

like to help! You see what I mean? It isn’t easy for me to say it, but

I’d be a coward if I didn’t say it—and mean it—and stand by it.”

There was a long pause. Sylvia was thinking. How different it was from

other men’s love-making! There was Malcolm McCallum, who had taken her

driving yesterday, and had said what they all said: “Never mind if you

don’t love me—marry me, and let me teach you to love me.” In other

words, “Stake your life’s happiness upon a blind chance, at the command

of my desire.” Of course they would surround her with all the external

things of life, build her a great house and furnish it richly, deck her

with silks and jewels and supply her with servants. All the world would

come to admire her, and then she would be so grateful to her generous

lord that she could not but love him.

Her voice was low as she answered, “A woman does not really care about

the outside things. She wants love most. She wants to be sure of her

heart—but of the man’s heart too.”

“As to that,” he said, “I will not trust myself to speak. You are the

loveliest vision that has ever come to me. You are——”

“I know,” she interrupted. “But that, too, is mostly surface. I am

luxurious, I am artificial and shallow—a kind of butterfly.” This was

what she said to men when she wished to be most deadly. But now she

really meant it; there was a mist of tears in her eyes.

“That is nothing,” he answered. “I am not such a fool that I can’t see

all that. There are two people in you, as in all of us. The question is,

which do you want to be?”

“How can I say?” she murmured. “It would be a question of whether you

loved me——”

“Ah, Sylvia!” he cried, in a voice of pain that startled her. And

suddenly he rose and began to pace the room. “I cannot talk about my

feeling for you,” he said. “I made up my mind before I came here that I

would not woo you—not if I had to bite off my tongue to prevent it. I

said, ‘I will explain to her, and then I will go away and give her

time.’ I want to play fair. I want to _know_ that I have played fair.”

As he stood there, she could see the knotted tendons in his hands, she

could see the agitation of his whole being. And suddenly a great current

took her and bore her to him. She put her hands upon his shoulders,

whispering, “Frank!”

He stood stiff and silent.

“I love you!” she said. “I love you!” She gave a little sob of

happiness; and he caught her in his arms and pressed her to his bosom,

crushing all her roses, and stifling her words with his kisses. And so,

a few minutes later, Sylvia was lying back in her favorite chair, with

the satisfaction of knowing at last that he was looking at her. A couple

of hours later, when he went away, it was as her plighted lover.

§ 21

Frank came again two days later; and then Mrs. Castleman made her first

remark. “Sylvia,” she said, “you mustn’t flirt with that man.”

“Why not, Mother?”

“Because he’d probably take it seriously. And he’s had a hard time, you

know. We can’t treat the Shirleys quite as we do other people.”

“All right,” said Sylvia. “I’ll be careful.”

Frank wanted the engagement made known at once—at least to the family.

Such was his direct way. But Sylvia had an instinct against telling; she

wanted a little time to watch and study and plan.

It was hard, however; she was absolutely shining with happiness—there

seemed to be a kind of soul-electricity that came from her and affected

everyone she met. It gathered the men about her thicker than ever—and at

the very time that she wanted to be alone with Frank and the thought of

Frank!

One evening when the Young Matrons’ Club gave its monthly cotillion,

Frank, knowing nothing about this event, called unexpectedly. A visit

meant to him forty miles on horseback; and so, to the general

consternation, Sylvia refused to attend the dance. All evening the

telephone rang and the protests poured in. “We won’t stand for it!” the

men declared; and the women asked, “Who is it?” She had been to a

bridge-party that afternoon, and everyone knew she was not sick. But

what man could it be, when all the men were at the cotillion?

So the gossip began; and a week later another incident gave it wings. It

was a great occasion, the semi-annual ball of the Country Club, and

Frank had been warned that Sylvia would not be at home. But he wanted to

see her in her glory, and he galloped his twenty miles in darkness and

rain, and turned up at the club-house at midnight, and stood in the

doorway to watch. Sylvia, seeing him and realizing what his presence

meant, was seized with a sudden impulse to acknowledge him. She stopped

dancing, and sent her partner away, and stood talking to Frank. Oh, what

a staring, what a wagging of tongues! Frank Shirley! Of all people in

the world, Frank Shirley!

Of course, the news came to the Hall. Early in the morning, Aunt Nannie

called up, announcing a visit, and there followed a family conclave with

Mrs. Castleman, Aunt Varina and Sylvia.

“Sylvia,” said Mrs. Chilton, trying her best to look casual, “I

understand that Frank Shirley was at the ball.”

“Yes, Aunt Nannie.”

There was a pause. “What was he doing there?” asked “Miss Margaret,”

evidently having been coached.

“Why, I’m sure, Mother, I don’t know.”

“Did you invite him?”

“Indeed, I did not.”

“He isn’t a member of the Club, is he?”

“No; but he knows lots of other people who are.”

“Everybody is saying he came to see you,” broke in Aunt Nannie. “They

say you stopped dancing to talk with him.”

“I can’t help what they say, Aunt Nannie.”

“Do you think,” inquired the Bishop’s wife, “that it was altogether wise

to get your name associated with his?”

“Isn’t he a gentleman?” asked Sylvia.

“That’s all right, my dear, but you’ve got to remember that you live in

the world, and must consider other people’s point of view.”

“Do you mean, Aunt Nannie, that Frank Shirley’s to be excluded from

society because of his father’s misfortune?”

“Not excluded, Sylvia. There are shades to such things. The point is

that a young girl—a girl conspicuous, like you——”

“But, Aunt Nannie, I asked mother and father, and they were willing to

receive him. Isn’t that true, Mother?”

“Why, yes, Sylvia,” said “Miss Margaret,” weakly, “but I didn’t mean——”

“It was all right for him to come here, once or twice,” interrupted Aunt

Nannie. “But at a Club ball——”

“The point is, Sylvia dear,” quavered Mrs. Tuis, “you will get yourself

a reputation for singularity.”

And the mother added, “You surely don’t have to do that to attract

attention!”

So there it was. All that fine sentiment about the unhappy Shirleys went

like a film of mist before a single breath of the world’s opinion! They

would not say it brutally—“He’s a convict’s son, and you can’t afford to

know him too well.” It was not the Southern fashion—at least among the

older generation—to be outspoken in worldliness. They had generous

ideals, and made their boast of “chivalry;” but here, when it came to a

test, they were all in accord with Aunt Nannie, who was said to “talk

like a cold-blooded Northern woman.”

Sylvia decided at once that some one must be told; so she went back to

lunch with her aunt, and afterwards sought out the Bishop in his study.

The walls of this room were lined with ancient theological treatises and

sermons in faded greenish-black bindings: an array which never failed to

appal the soul of Sylvia, who realized that she had consigned to the

scrap-heap all this mass of learning—and had not yet apologized for her

temerity.

“Uncle Basil,” she began, “I have something very, very important to tell

you.” The Bishop turned from his desk and gazed at her. “I am engaged to

be married,” she said.

“Why, Sylvia!” he exclaimed.

“And I—I’m very much in love.”

“Who is the man, my dear?”

“It is Frank Shirley.”

Sylvia was used to watching people and reading their thoughts quickly.

She saw that her uncle’s first emotion was one of dismay. “Frank

Shirley!”

“Yes, Uncle Basil.”

Then she saw him gather himself together. He was going to try to be

fair—the dear soul! But she could not forget that his first emotion had

been dismay. “Tell me about it, my child,” he said.

“I met him at the Venable’s,” she replied, “only a couple of weeks ago.

He’s an unusual sort of man, lonely and unhappy, very reserved and hard

to get at. He fell in love with me—very much in love; but he didn’t want

me to know it. He did tell me at last.”

The Bishop was silent. “I love him,” she added.

“Are you sure?”

“As I’ve never loved anybody—as I never dreamed I could love.”

There was a pause. “Uncle Basil—he’s a good man,” she said. “That is why

I love him.”

Again there was a pause. “Have you told your father and mother?” asked

the Bishop.

“Not yet.”

“You must tell them at once, Sylvia.”

“I know they will make objections, and I want you to meet Frank and talk

with him. You see, Uncle Basil, I’m going to marry him—and I want your

help.”

The Bishop was silent again, weighing his next words. “Of course, my

dear,” he said, “from a worldly point of view it is not a good match,

and I fear your parents will regard it as a calamity. But, as you know,

I think of nothing but the happiness of my darling Sylvia. I won’t say

anything at all until I have met the man. Send him to see me, little

girl, and then I will give you the best counsel I can.”

§ 22

Frank went to pay his call the next day, and then came back to Sylvia.

“He’s a dear old man,” he said. “And he wants what is best for you.”

“What does he want?” demanded Sylvia.

“He says we should not marry now—that I ought to be better able to take

care of you. And of course he’s right.”

There was a pause; then suddenly Frank exclaimed, “Sylvia, I can’t be

just a farmer if I’m going to marry you.”

“What can you be, Frank?”

“I’m going to go to college.”

“But that would take four years!”

“No, it needn’t. I could dig in and get into the Sophomore class this

winter. I’ve been through a military academy, and I was going to

Harvard, where my father and my grandfather went, but I thought it was

my duty to come home and see to the place. But now my brother has grown

up, and he has a good head for business.”

“What would you do ultimately?”

“I’ve always wanted to study law, and I think now I ought to. Nobody is

going to be willing for us to marry at once; and they’re much less apt

to object to me if I’m seriously going to make something of myself.”

Sylvia went over the next morning to get her uncle’s blessing. The good

Bishop gave it to her—together with some exhortations which he judged

she needed. They were summed up in one sentence which he pronounced:

“There is nothing more unhappy in this world than a serious-minded man

with a worldly-minded wife.” Poor old Uncle Basil, with his snow-white

hair and his patient, saintly face, worn with care—how much of his own

soul he put into that utterance! Sylvia laid her head upon his shoulder,

and let the tears run down upon his coat.

After a while, he remarked, “Sylvia, your aunt saw Frank come here.”

“What!” exclaimed Sylvia. “You don’t mean that she’ll guess!”

“She’s very clever at guessing, my child.” So Sylvia, as she rode home,

realized that she had no more time to lose. When she got to the Hall,

she set to work at once to carry out her plans.

She found her Aunt Varina in her room with a headache. On her

dressing-table was a picture of the late-lamented Mr. Tuis, which Sylvia

picked up. By manifesting a little interest in it, she quickly got her

aunt to talking on the subject of matrimony.

Mrs. Tuis was the youngest of the Major’s sisters. In the face of the

protests of her relatives she had married a comparatively “common” man,

who was poor and had turned out to be a drunkard, and after leading Aunt

Varina a dog’s life, had taken chloral. So Mrs. Tuis had come back to

eat the bread of charity—which, though it was liberally sweetened with

affection, had also a slightly bitter taste of compassion.

Her ill-fated romance was a poor thing, perhaps—but her own. As she told

it her bosom fluttered and the tears trickled down her cheeks; and when

she had got to a state of complete deliquescence, her niece whispered:

“Oh, Aunt Varina, I’m so glad you believe in love! Aunt Varina, will you

keep a solemn secret if I tell it to you?”

And so came the story of the amazing engagement. Mrs. Tuis listened with

wide-open, startled eyes, every now and then whispering, “Sylvia!

Sylvia!” Of course she was thrilled to the deeps of her soul by it; and

of course, in the mood that she had been caught, she could not possibly

refuse her sympathy. “You must help me with the others,” said the girl.

“I’m going to tell mother next.”

§ 23

The first thing that struck you about “Miss Margaret” was her appalling

incompetence. But underneath it lay the most exclusively maternal soul

imaginable. She had nursed her children when they were almost two years

old, great healthy calves running about the place and standing up to

suck; she had rocked them to sleep in her arms when they were big enough

to be reading Virgil; she had shed as many tears over a broken finger as

most mothers shed over a funeral. She wanted her daughters to be happy,

and to this end she would give them anything that civilization provided;

she would even be willing that one of them should marry a man whose

father “wore stripes”—so far as she was concerned, and so long as she

remained alone with the daughter. You must picture her, clasping Sylvia

in her arms and weeping from general agitation; moved to pity by the

tale of Frank’s loneliness, moved to awe by the tale of his goodness—but

then suddenly smitten as by a thunderbolt with the thought: “What will

people say! What will your Aunt Nannie say!”

While Sylvia was bent upon having her way, you must not imagine that she

did not feel any of these emotions. Although she was mostly Lady Lysle,

her far-off ancestress, she was also a little of “Miss Margaret,” and

was almost capsized in these gales of emotion. She remembered a hundred

scenes of tenderness and devotion; she clasped the great girl-mother in

her arms, and mingled their tears and vowed that she would never do

anything to make her unhappy. It was a lachrymal lane—this pathway of

Sylvia’s engagement!

With her father she took a different line. She got the Major alone in

his office and talked to him solemnly, not about love and romance, but

about Frank Shirley’s character. She knew that the Major was disturbed

by the wildness of the young men of the world about him; she had heard

him discuss the pace at which Aunt Nannie’s boys were traveling. And

here was a man who had sowed no wild oats, and had learned the lesson of

self-control.

She was surprised at the way the Major took it. He clutched the arms of

his chair and went white when he caught the import of her discourse; but

he heard her to the end, and then sat for a long while in silence.

Finally, he inquired, “Sylvia, did anybody ever tell you why your Uncle

Laurence killed himself?”

“No,” she replied.

“He was engaged to a girl, and her parents made her break off the match.

I never knew why; but it ruined the girl’s life, as well as his, and it

made a terrible impression on me. So I made a vow—and now, I suppose, is

the time I have to keep it. I said I would never interfere in a

love-affair of one of my children!”

Sylvia was deeply affected, not only by his words, but by the intense

agitation which she saw he was repressing. “Papa, does it seem so very

dreadful to you?” she asked.

Again there was a long wait before he answered. “It is something quite

different from what I had expected,” he said. “It will make a difference

in your whole life—to an extent which I fear you cannot realize.”

“But if I really love him, Papa?”

“If you really love him, my dear, then I will not try to oppose you. But

oh, Sylvia, be sure that you love him! You must promise me to wait until

I can be sure you are not mistaken about that.”

“I expect to wait, Papa,” she said. “There will be no mistake.”

They talked for half an hour or so, and then Sylvia went to her room.

Half an hour later “Aunt Sarah,” the cook, came flying to her in great

agitation. “Miss Sylvia, what’s de matter wid yo’ papa?”

“What?” cried Sylvia, springing up.

“He’s sittin’ on a log out beyan’ de garden, cryin’ fo’ to break his

heart!”

Sylvia fled to the spot, and fell upon her knees by him and flung her

arms about him, crying, “Papa, Papa!” He was still sobbing; she had

never seen him exhibit such emotion in her life before, and she was

terrified. “Papa, what is it?”

She felt him shudder and control himself. “Nothing, Sylvia. I can’t tell

you.”

“Papa,” she whispered, “do you object to Frank Shirley as much as that?”

“No, my dear—it isn’t that. It’s that the whole thing has knocked me off

my feet. My little girl is going away from me—and I didn’t know she was

grown up yet. It made me feel so old!”

He looked at her, trying to smile and feeling a little ashamed of his

tears. She looked into the dear face, and it seemed withered and

wrinkled all of a sudden. She realized with a pang how much he really

had aged. He was working so hard—she would see him at his accounts late

at night, when she was leaving for a ball, and would feel ashamed for

her joys that he had to pay for. “Oh, Papa, Papa!” she cried, “I ought

to marry a rich man!”

“My child,” he exclaimed, “don’t let me hear you say a thing like that!”

Poor, poor Major! He said it and he meant it; he was, I think, the most

_naïve_ of all the members of his family. He was a “Southern gentleman,”

not a business man; he hated money with his whole soul—hated it, even

while he spent it and enjoyed what it brought him. He was like a chip of

wood caught in a powerful current; swept through rapids and over

cataracts, to his own boundless bewilderment and dismay.

§ 24

“He is without any pride of family.” That had been the verdict upon the

Major pronounced by his mother, who had been a grand lady in her own

day. She would turn to her eldest daughter and say, “Look after him,

Nannie! Make him keep his shoes shined!” And so now, towards the end of

their conference, Sylvia and her father found themselves looking at each

other and saying, “What will Aunt Nannie say?” Sylvia was laughing, but

all the same she had not the nerve to face her aunt, and ’phoned the

Bishop to ask him to break the news.

Half an hour later the energetic lady’s automobile was heard at the

door. And now behold, a grand council, with the Major and his wife, Mrs.

Chilton, Mrs. Tuis, Mr. Mandeville Castleman, Sylvia and Celeste—the

last having learned that something startling had happened, and being

determined to find out about it.

“Now,” began Aunt Nannie, “what is this that Basil has been trying to

tell me?”

There was no reply.

“Mandeville,” she demanded, “have you heard this news?”

“No,” said Uncle Mandeville.

“That Sylvia has engaged herself to Frank Shirley!”

“Good God!” said Uncle Mandeville.

“Sylvia!” exclaimed Celeste, in horror.

“Is it true?” demanded Aunt Nannie—in a tone which said that she

declined to comment until official confirmation had been received.

“It is true,” said Sylvia.

“And what have you to say about it?” inquired Aunt Nannie. She looked

first at the Major, then at his wife, and then at Mrs. Tuis; but no one

had anything to say.

“I can’t quite believe that you’re in your right senses,” continued the

speaker. “Or that I have heard you say the words. What _can_ have got

into you?”

“Nannie,” said the Major, clearing his throat, “Sylvia doesn’t want to

marry him for a long time.”

“But she proposes to be engaged to him, I understand!”

“Yes,” admitted the other.

“And this engagement is to be announced?”

“Why—er—I suppose——”

“Certainly,” put in Sylvia.

“And when, may I ask?”

“At once.”

“And is there nobody here who has thought of the consequences? Possibly

you have overlooked the fact that one of my daughters has planned to

marry Ridgely Peyton next month. That is to be called off?”

“What do you mean, Aunt Nannie?”

“Can you be childish enough to imagine that the Peytons will consent to

marry into a family with a convict’s son in it?”

“Nannie!” protested the Major.

“I know!” replied Mrs. Chilton. “Sylvia doesn’t like the words. But if

she proposes to marry a convict’s son, she may as well get used to them

now as later. It’s the thing that people will be saying about her for

the balance of her days; the thing they’ll be saying about all of us

everywhere. Look at Celeste there—just ready to come out! How much

chance she’ll have—with such a start! Her sister engaged to Frank

Shirley!”

Sylvia turned to Celeste, and the eyes of these two met. Celeste turned

pale, and her look was eloquent of dismay.

“Nannie,” put in the Major, protestingly, “Frank Shirley is a fine,

straight fellow——”

“I’ve nothing to say against Frank Shirley,” exclaimed the other. “I

know nothing about him, and never expect to know anything about him. But

I know the story of his family, and I know that he’s no right in ours.

And what’s more, he knows it too—if he were a man with any conscience or

self-respect, he’d not consent to ruin Sylvia’s life!”

“Aunt Nannie,” broke in the girl, “is one to think of nothing in

marriage but worldly pride?”

“Worldly pride!” ejaculated the other. “You call it worldly

pride—because you, who have been the favorite child of the Castlemans,

who have been given every luxury, every privilege, are asked not to

trample your sisters and cousins! To give way to a blind passion, and

put a stain upon our name that will last for generations! Where do you

suppose you’d have been to-day if your forefathers had acted in such

fashion? Do you imagine that you’d have been the belle of Castleman

Hall, the most sought-after girl in the state?”

That was the argument. For some minutes Mrs. Chilton went on to pour it

forth. And angry as she was, Sylvia could not but feel the force of it,

and realize the effect it was producing on the other members of the

council. It was not the voice of a woman speaking; it was the voice of

something greater than any of them, or than all of them together—a thing

that had come from dim-distant ages, and would continue into an

impenetrable future. It was the voice of the Family! No light thing it

was, in truth, to be the favorite daughter of the Castlemans! Not a

responsibility one could evade, an honor one could decline!

“You are where you are to-day,” proclaimed the speaker, “because other

women thought of you when they chose their husbands. And I have never

observed in you any unwillingness to accept the advantages they have

handed on to you, any contempt for admiration and success. You are only

a girl, of course; you can’t be expected to realize all the meaning of

your marriage to your family; but your mother and father know, and they

ought to have impressed it on you, instead of leaving you to run wild

and be trapped by the first unprincipled man that came along!”

There was a pause. The Major and his wife sat in silence, with a guilty

look upon their faces. “Worldly pride!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie, turning

upon them. “Have you told her about your own marriage?”

“What do you mean?” asked the Major.

“You know very well,” was the reply, “that Margaret, when she married

you, was head over heels in love with a nice, respectable, poor young

preacher. And that she married you, not because she was in love with

you, but because she knew that you were a noble-minded gentleman, the

head of the oldest and best family in the county.” And then Aunt Nannie

turned upon Sylvia. “Suppose,” she demanded, “that your mother had been

sentimental and silly, and had run away with the preacher—have you any

idea where you’d be now?”

Sylvia was hardly to be blamed for having no answer to this question,

which might have been too much for the most learned scientist. There was

silence in the council.

“Or take Mandeville,” pursued the Voice of the Family.

“Nannie!” protested Mandeville.

“You don’t want it talked about, I know,” said the other, “but this is a

time for truth-telling. Your Uncle Mandeville was madly in love with a

girl—a girl who had position, and money too; but he would not marry her

because she had a sister who was ‘fast,’ and he would not bring such

blood into the family.”

There was a pause. Uncle Mandeville’s head was bowed.

“And do you remember,” persisted Aunt Nannie, “that when the question

was being discussed, your brother here asked that his growing daughters

be spared having to hear about a scandal? Do you remember that?”

“Yes,” said Mandeville, “I remember that.”

“And how much nobler was such conduct than that of your Uncle Tom.

Think——”

One could feel a sudden thrill go through the assembly. “Oh!” cried Miss

Margaret, protestingly; and Mrs. Tuis exclaimed, “Nannie!”

“Think of what happened to Tom’s wife!” the other was proceeding; but

here she was stopped by a firm word from the Major. “We will not discuss

that, sister!”

There was a solemn pause, during which Sylvia and Celeste stared at each

other. They knew that Uncle Tom Harley, their mother’s brother, was an

army officer stationed in the far West; but they had never heard before

that he had a wife, and were amazed and a little frightened by the

revelation. It is in moments such as these, when the tempers of men and

women strike sparks, that one gets glimpses of the skeletons that are

hidden far back in the corners of family closets!

§ 25

There was a phrase which Sylvia had heard a thousand times in the

discussions of her relatives; it was “bad blood.” “Bad blood” was a

thing which possessed and terrified the Castleman imagination. Sylvia

had but the vaguest ideas of heredity. She had heard it stated that

tuberculosis and insanity were transmissible, and that one must never

marry into a family where these disorders appeared; but apparently,

also, the family considered that poverty and obscurity were

transmissible—besides the general tendency to do things of which your

neighbors disapproved. And you were warned that these evils often

skipped a generation and reappeared. You might pick out a most excellent

young man for a husband, and then see your children return to the

criminal ways of his ancestors.

That was Aunt Nannie’s argument now. When Sylvia cried, “What has Frank

Shirley done?” the reply was, “It’s not what he did, but what his father

did.”

“But,” cried the girl, “his father was innocent! I’ve heard Papa say it

a hundred times!”

“Then his uncle was guilty,” was Aunt Nannie’s response. “Somebody took

the money and gambled it away.”

“But is gambling such a terrible offence? It seems to me I’ve heard of

some Castlemans gambling.”

“If they do,” was the reply, “they gamble with their own money.”

At which Sylvia cried, “Nothing of the kind! They have gambled, and then

come to Uncle Mandeville to get him to pay their debts!”

Now that was a body-blow; for it was Aunt Nannie’s own boys who had

adopted this custom, which Sylvia had heard sternly reprehended in the

family councils. Aunt Nannie flushed, and Uncle Mandeville made haste to

interpose—“Sylvia, you should not speak so to your aunt.”

“I don’t see why not,” declared the girl. “I am saying nothing but what

is true; and I have been attacked in the thing that is most precious in

life to me.”

Here the Major felt it his duty to enter the debate. “Sylvia,” he said,

“I don’t think you quite realize your aunt’s feelings. It is no selfish

motive that leads her to make these objections.”

“Not selfish?” asked the girl. “She’s admitted it’s her fear for her own

daughters, Papa——”

“It’s just exactly as much for your own sister, Sylvia.” It was the

voice of Celeste, entering the discussion for the first time. Sylvia

stared at her, astonished, and saw her eyes alight, her face as set and

hard as Aunt Nannie’s. Sylvia realized all at once that she had an enemy

in her own house.

She was trembling violently as she made reply. “Then, Celeste, I have to

give up everything that means happiness in life to me, because I might

frighten away rich suitors from my sister?”

“Sylvia,” put in the Major, gravely, before Celeste could speak, “you

must not say things like that. It is not because Frank Shirley is poor

that we are objecting. The pride of the Castlemans is not simply a pride

of worldly power.”

“She degrades us and degrades herself when she implies it!” exclaimed

Aunt Nannie.

“It is a high and great pride,” continued the Major. “The pride of a

race of men and women who have scorned ignoble conduct and held

themselves above all dishonor. That is no weak or shallow thing, Sylvia.

It is a thing which sustains and upholds us at every moment of our

lives: that we are living, not merely for our individual selves, but for

all the generations that are to be. It may seem a cruel thing that the

sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children, but it is a law

of God. It was something that Bob Shirley himself said to me, with tears

in his eyes—that his children and his children’s children would have to

pay for what had been done.”

“But, Papa!” cried Sylvia. “They don’t have to pay it, except that we

make them pay it!”

“You are mistaken, my child,” said the Major, quietly. “It’s not we

alone. It was the whole of society that condemned him. We cannot

possibly wipe out the blot on the Shirley escutcheon.”

“We can only drag ourselves down with them!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie.

“Why, it’s just as if we said that going to prison was nothing!” cried

Celeste.

“You must remember how many people there are looking up to us, Sylvia,”

put in Uncle Mandeville, solemnly.

There they were, all in chorus; Sylvia gazed in anguish from one to

another. She gazed at her mother, just at the moment that that good lady

was preparing to express her opinion. For the particular thing which

held the imagination of “Miss Margaret” in thrall was this vision of the

Castlemans living their life as it were upon a stage, with the lower

orders in the pit looking on, imbibing instruction and inspiration from

the action of the lofty drama.

Sylvia had heard it all before, and she could not bear to listen to it

now. The tears, which had long been in her eyes, suddenly began to roll

down her cheeks; she sprang up, exclaiming passionately, “You are all

against me! Everyone of you!”

“Sylvia,” said her father, in distress, “that is not true!”

“We would wade through blood for you!” exclaimed Uncle Mandeville—who

was always looking for a chance to shoot somebody for the honor of the

Castleman name.

“We are thinking of nothing but your own future,” said the Major. “You

are only a child, Sylvia——”

But Sylvia cried, “I can’t bear any more! You promised to stand by me,

Papa—and now you let Aunt Nannie come here and persuade you—Mamma

too—all of you! You will break my heart!” And so saying she fled from

the room, leaving the family council to proceed as best it could without

her.

§ 26

Sylvia shut herself in her room and had a good, exhaustive cry. Then,

with her soul atmosphere cleared, she set to work to think out her

problem.

She had to admit that the family had presented a strong case. There was

the matter of heredity, for example. Just how much likelihood might

there be, in the event of her marrying Frank, of her finding herself

with children of evil tendencies? Just what truth might there be in Aunt

Nannie’s point of view, that he was a selfish man, seeking to redeem his

family fortunes by allying himself with the Castlemans? The question

sounded cold-blooded, but then Sylvia always had to face the truth.

Also there was the problem, to what extent a girl ought to sacrifice

herself to her family. There was no denying that they had done much for

her. She had been as their right eye to them; and what did she owe them

in return? There was no one of them whom she did not love, sincerely,

intensely; there was no one over whose sorrows she had not wept, whose

burdens she had not borne. And now she faced the fact that if she

married Frank Shirley, she would cause them unhappiness. She might argue

that they had no right to be unhappy; but that did not alter the

fact—they would be unhappy. Sylvia’s life so far had been a process of

bringing other people joy; and now, suddenly, she found herself in a

dilemma where it was necessary for her to cause pain. Upon whom ought it

to fall—upon her mother and father, her uncles and aunts—or upon Frank

Shirley and herself?

Of all the arguments which produced an effect upon her, the most

powerful was that embodied in Aunt Nannie’s phrase, “a blind passion.”

Sylvia had been taught to think of “passion” as something low and

shameful; she did not like the vision of herself as a weak, infatuated

creature, throwing away all that other people had striven to give her.

Many were the phrases whereby all her life she had heard such conduct

scorned; there was a phrase from the Bible that was often

cited—something about “inordinate affection.” Just what was the

difference between ordinate and inordinate affection? And how was she to

decide in which category to place her love for Frank Shirley?

For the greater part of two days and two nights Sylvia debated these

problems; and then she went to her father. The color was gone from her

cheeks, and she was visibly thinner; but her mind was made up.

She told the Major all the doubts that had beset her and all the

arguments she had considered. She set forth his contention that the

pride of the Castlemans was not a “worldly pride;” and then she

announced her conclusion, which was that he was permitting himself to be

carried along, against his own better judgment, by the vanity of the

women of his family.

Needless to say, the Major was startled by this pronouncement, delivered

with all the solemnity of a pontiff _ex cathedra_. But Sylvia was ready

with her proofs. There was Aunt Nannie, scheming and plotting day and

night to make great marriages for her children. Spending her husband’s

money in ways he disapproved, and getting—what? Was there a single one

of her children that was happy? Was there a single couple—for all the

rich marriages—that wasn’t living beyond its income, and jealous of

other people who were able to spend more? Harley, grumbling because he

couldn’t have a motor of his own—Clive, because he couldn’t afford to

marry the girl he loved! And both of them drinking and gambling, and

forcing Uncle Mandeville to pay their debts.

“Sylvia, you know I have protested to your Aunt Nannie.”

“Yes, Papa—but meantime you’re ruining your own health and fortune to

enable your daughters to run the same race. Here’s Celeste, like a hound

in the leash, eager to have her chance—just Aunt Nannie all over again!

I know, Papa—it’s terrible, and I can’t bear to hurt you with it, but I

have to tell you what my own decision is. I love Frank Shirley; I think

my love for him is a true love, and I can’t for a moment think of giving

it up. I’m sorry to have to break faith with the Family; I can only

plead that I didn’t understand the bargain when I made it, and that I

shall take care not to make my debt any greater.”

“What do you mean, Sylvia?”

“I mean that I want to give up the social game. I want to stop spending

fortunes on clothes and travel and luxuries; I want to stop being

paraded round and exhibited to men I’m not interested in. I want you to

give me a little money—just what I need to live—and let me go to New

York to study music for a year or two more, until I am able to teach and

earn my own living.”

“Earn your own living! _Sylvia!_”

“Precisely, Papa. And meantime, Frank can go through college and law

school, and when we can take care of ourselves, we’ll marry. That’s my

plan, and I’m serious about it—I want you to let me do it this year.”

And there sat the poor Major, staring at her, his face a study of

unutterable emotions, whispering to himself, “My God! My God!”

When Sylvia told me about this scene I reminded her of her experience

with the young clergyman who had come to convert her from heresy. “Don’t

you see now,” I asked, “why he called you the most dangerous woman in

Castleman County?”

§ 27

This procedure of Sylvia’s was a beautiful illustration of what the

military strategists call an “offensive defence.” By the simple

suggestion of earning her own living, she got everything else in the

world that she wanted. It was agreed that she might make known her

engagement to Frank Shirley. It was agreed that she need have no more

money spent upon clothes and parties. Most important of all, it was

agreed that Aunt Nannie was to be informed that Sylvia’s course was

approved by her parents, and that Frank Shirley was to be welcomed to

Castleman Hall.

But of course she was not to be allowed to earn money. Her father made

it clear that the bare suggestion of this caused him more unhappiness

than she could endure to inflict. When she protested, “I want to learn

something useful!” the dear old Major was ready with the proposition

that they learn something useful together; and forthwith unlocked the

diamond-paned doors of the old mahogany book-cases, and dragged forth

dust-covered sets of Grote’s “History of Greece,” and Hume’s “History of

England,” and Jefferson Davis’ “Rise and Fall of the Confederate

Government”—out of which ponderous volumes Sylvia read aloud to him for

several hours each day thereafter.

So from now on this is to be the story of a wholly reformed and

chastened huntress of hearts. No more for her the tournaments of

coquetry, no more the trumpets of the ball-room peal. No longer shall we

behold her, clad in armor of chiffon and real lace, with breastplate of

American beauty roses and helmet of gold and pearls. No longer shall we

see the arrows of her red-brown eyes flying over the stricken field,

deep-dyed with the heart’s blood of Masculinity. Instead of this the

dusty tome and the midnight oil and the green eye-shade confront us; we

behold the uncanny spectacle of the loveliest of created mortals clad in

blue stockings and black-rimmed spectacles.—All this scintillating wit,

I make haste to explain, is not mine, but something which Avery

Crittenden, the town wag, dashed off in a moment of illumination, and

which appeared in the Castleman County _Register_ (no names, if you

please!) a couple of weeks after the news of Sylvia’s reformation had

stunned the world.

I wish that space were less limited, so that I could tell you how

Castleman County received the tidings, and some few of the comical

episodes in the long war which it waged to break down her resolution of

withdrawal. It was the light of their eyes going out, and they could not

and would not be reconciled to it. They wrote letters, they sent

telegrams; they would come and literally besiege the house—sit in the

parlor and condole with “Miss Margaret,” no longer because Sylvia

refused to marry them, but merely because she refused to lead the german

with them! They would come with bands of music, with negro singers to

serenade her. One spring night a whole fancy-dress ball adjourned by

unanimous consent, and stormed the terraces of Castleman Hall and held

its revels under the windows; and so of course Sylvia had to stop trying

to read about Walpole’s ministry and invite them in and give them wine

and cake. On the evening of one of the club dances there was an

organized conspiracy; seventeen of her old sweethearts sent her roses,

and when in spite of this she did not come, the next day came seventeen

messengers, bearing seventeen packages, each containing a little cupid

wrapped in cotton-wool—but with his wings broken!

Such was the pressure from outside; and within—there would be a new gown

sent by Uncle Mandeville, who was on another spree in New Orleans; a

gown that was really a dream of beauty and a crime not to wear. Or there

would be talk at the table about Dolly Witherspoon, Sylvia’s chief

rival, and the triumph she had won at the cotillion last night; how

Stanley Pendleton was “rushing” her, and how Cousin Harley had been

snubbed by her. And then some one gave a ball, and Charlie Peyton rang

up to say that he was getting drunk and going to the devil unless Sylvia

would come and dance with him! And when this device succeeded, and the

rumor of it spread—how many of the nicest boys in the county took to

getting drunk and going to the devil, because Sylvia would not come and

dance with them!

I mention these things in order that you may understand that, sincere as

Sylvia was in her effort to withdraw from “society,” she was not

entirely successful. She still met “eligible” men, and she was still an

object of family concern. A few days after the council, she had been

surprised by a visit from Aunt Nannie, who came to apologize and make

peace. “I want you to know, Sylvia dear,” she declared, “that what I

said to you was said with no thought of anything but your own good.”

There was a reconciliation, with tears in the eyes of both of them—and a

renewal of the activities of Aunt Nannie. How often it happened to

Sylvia, when at some dance she fell into the clutches of an undesirable

man, that Aunt Nannie found a pretext for joining them—and presently,

without quite realizing how, Sylvia found that the man was gone, and

that she was settled for a _tête-à-tête_ with a more suitable companion!

Once she stopped to luncheon with the Bishop, and found herself being

shown a new album of photographs. There among English cathedrals and

Rhenish castles she stumbled upon a picture of the “Mansion House,” the

home of the wealthy Peytons. “What a lovely old place!” she exclaimed;

and her aunt remarked, “Charlie will inherit that, lucky boy!”

She remembered also the case of Ned Scott, the young West Pointer who

came home on furlough, setting all the girls’ hearts aflutter with his

gray and gold gorgeousness. “My, what a handsome fellow!” exclaimed Aunt

Nannie. “It makes me happy just to watch him walk!”

“An army man always has a good social position,” remarked “Miss

Margaret,” casually.

“And an assured income,” added Aunt Varina, timidly.

“He has a mole on his nose,” observed Sylvia.

§ 28

Frank Shirley had passed the midwinter examinations at Harvard, and was

settled in the dormitory of his fathers; and so for a while the acute

agitation subsided. It began again in the summer, however—when Sylvia

proposed staying at the Hall, instead of going with the family to the

summer-place in the mountains of North Carolina. It was obvious that

this was in order to be near her lover; and so the whole battle had to

be fought over again. Aunt Nannie was unable to understand how Sylvia

could be willing to “publish her infatuation to the world.”

“But I have only the summer when I can see him,” the girl argued.

“But even so, my dear—to give up everything else, to change all your

plans, the plans of your whole family!”

“Nobody need change, Aunt Nannie. Aunt Varina will stay with me gladly.”

“Others have to stay, if it’s only to hide what you are doing. It’s not

decent, Sylvia! Believe me, you will lose the man’s own respect if you

behave so. No man can permanently respect a woman who betrays her

feelings so openly.”

“My dear Aunt Nannie,” said Sylvia, quietly, “I am quite sure that I

know Frank Shirley better than you do.”

“Poor, deluded child,” was Mrs. Chilton’s comment. “You’ll find to your

sorrow some day that men are all alike!”

But the girl was obdurate. The family had to proceed to desperate

measures. First her mother declared that she would stay also—she must

remain to protect her unfortunate child. And then, of course, the Major

decided that it was his duty to remain. There came the question of

Celeste, who had planned a house party, and foresaw the spoiling of her

fun by the selfishness of her sister. There was also the baby—the

precious, ineffable baby, the heir of all the might, majesty and

dominion of the Lysles. The family physician intervened—the child must

positively have the mountain air. Also the Major’s liver trouble was

serious, he was sleeping badly and working too hard, and was in

desperate need of a change. Prompted by Aunt Nannie, the doctor said

this in Sylvia’s hearing—and settled the matter.

It had been Frank’s idea to remain at Cambridge and study during the

summer, so as to make up some “conditions;” but when he learned that

Sylvia intended to remain at the Hall, he decided to stand the expense

of coming home. He arrived there to find that she had suddenly changed

her mind and was going—and offering but slight explanation of her

change. Sylvia was intensely humiliated because of the attitude of her

family, and was trying to spare Frank the pain of knowing about it.

So came the beginning of unhappiness between them. Frank was acutely

conscious of his inferiority to her in all worldly ways. And he knew

that her relatives were trying to break down her resolution. He could

not believe that they would succeed; and yet, there was a bitter and

disillusioned man within him who could not believe that they would fail.

In his soul there were always thorns of doubt, which festered, and now

and then would cause him pangs of agony. But he was as proud as any

savage, and would have died before he would ask for mercy. When he

learned that she was going away from him, for no better reason than her

relatives’ objections, he felt that she did not care enough for him. And

then, when he did not protest, it was Sylvia’s turn to worry. So it

really did not matter to him whether she stayed or not! It might be that

Aunt Nannie was right after all, that a man ceased to love a woman who

gave herself too freely.

§ 29

The matter was complicated by the episode of Beauregard Dabney, about

which I have to tell.

You have heard, perhaps, of the Dabneys of Charleston; the names of

three of them—Beauregard’s grandfather and two great-uncles—may be read

upon the memorial tablets in the stately old church which is the city’s

pride. In Charleston they have a real aristocracy—gentlemen so poor that

they wear their cuffs all ragged, yet are received with homage in the

proudest homes in the South. The Dabneys had a city mansion with front

steps crumbling away, and a country house which would not keep out the

rain; and yet when Beauregard, the young scion of the house, fell prey

to the charm and animation of Harriet Atkinson, whose father’s street

railroad was equal to a mint, the family regarded it as the greatest

calamity since Appomattox.

He had followed Harriet to Castleman County; and when the news got out,

a detachment of uncles and aunts came flying, and captured the poor boy,

and were on the point of shipping him home, when Harriet called Sylvia

to the rescue. Sylvia could impress even the Dabneys; and if only she

would have Beauregard and one of the aunts invited to Castleman Hall, it

might yet be possible to save the situation.

Sylvia had met young Dabney once, when visiting in Charleston. She

remembered him as an effeminate-mannered youth, with what would have

been a doll-baby face but for the fact that the nose caved in in the

middle in a disturbing way. “Tell me, Harriet,” she asked, when she met

her friend—“are you in love with him?”

“I don’t know,” said Harriet. “I’m afraid I’m not—at least, not very

much.”

“But why do you want to marry a man you don’t love?”

Harriet was driving, and she grasped the reins tightly and gave the

horse a flick with the whip. “Sunny,” she said, “you might as well face

the fact—I could never fall in love as you have. I don’t believe in it.

I wouldn’t want to. I’d never let myself trust a man that much.”

“But then, why marry?”

“I have to marry. What can I do? I’m tired of being chaperoned, and I

don’t want to be an old maid.”

Sylvia pondered for a moment. “Suppose,” she said, “that you should

marry him, and then meet a man you loved?”

“I’ve already answered that—it won’t happen. I’m too selfish.” She

paused, and then added, “It’s all right, Sunny. I’ve figured over it,

and I’m not making any mistake. He’s a good fellow, and I like him. He’s

a gentleman—he does not offend me. Also, he’s very much in love with me,

which is the best way; I’ll always be the boss in my own home. He’s

respected, and I’ll help out my poor struggling family if I marry him.

You know how it is, Sunny—I vowed I’d never be a climber, but it’s hard

to pull back when your people are eager for the heights. And then, too,

it’s always a temptation to want to go where you’re told you can’t go.”

“Yes, I know that,” said Sylvia. “But that’s a joke, and marrying’s a

serious matter.”

“It’s only that because we make it so,” retorted the other. “I find

myself bored to death, and here’s something that rouses my fighting

blood. They say I sha’n’t have him—and so I want him. I’m going to break

into that family, and then I’m going to shake the rats out of the hair

of some of those old maid aunts of his!”

She laughed savagely and drove on for a while. “Sunny,” she resumed at

last, “you’re all right. You know it, but I tell you so anyway. You

never were a snob that I know—but I’m cynical enough to say that it’s

only because you are too proud. Can you imagine how you’d feel if

anybody tried to patronize you? Can you imagine how you’d feel if

everybody did it? I’m tired of it—don’t you see? And Beauregard is my

way of escape. I’m going to marry him if I possibly can; my mind is made

up to it. I’ve got the whole plan of campaign laid out—your part

included.”

“What’s my part, Harriet?”

“It’s very simple. I want you to let Beauregard fall in love with you.”

“With _me_!”

“Yes. I want you to give him the worst punishment you ever gave a man in

your life.”

“But what’s that for?”

“He’s in love with me—he wants me—and he’s too much of a coward to marry

me. And I want to see him suffer for it—as only you can make him. I want

you to take him and maul him, I want you to bray him and pound him in

your mortar, I want you to roll him and toss him about, to walk on him

and stamp on him, to beat him to a jelly and grind him to a powder! I

want you to keep it up till he’s thoroughly reduced—and then you can

turn him over to me.”

“And then you will heal him?” inquired Sylvia—who had not been alarmed

by this bloodthirsty discourse.

“Perhaps I will and perhaps I won’t,” said the other. “What is there in

the maxims of Lady Dee about a broken heart?”

“The best way to catch a man,” quoted Sylvia, “is on the rebound!”

§ 30

I don’t know how this adventure will seem to you. To me it was

atrocious; but Sylvia undertook it with a child’s delight.

“I had on a white hat with pink roses,” she said, when she told me about

it; “and I could always do anything to a man when I had pink roses on.

Beauregard was waiting for Harriet to go driving when I first saw him;

she was upstairs, late on purpose. He said something about my looking

like a rose myself—he was the most obvious of human creatures. And when

he asked me to get in and sit by him, I said, ‘Harriet will be jealous.’

Of course he was charmed at the idea of Harriet’s being jealous. So he

asked me to take a little drive with him, and we stayed out an hour—and

by the time we got back, I had him!”

Two days later he was on his knees begging Sylvia to marry him. At

which, of course, she was horrified. “Why, you’re supposed to be in love

with my best friend!”

He was frank about it, poor soul. “Of course, Miss Sylvia,” he

explained, “I was in love with Harriet; and Harriet’s a fine girl, all

right. It’s bad about her family, but I thought we could go away where

nobody knew her, and people would accept her as my wife, and they’d soon

forget. She’s jolly and interesting, and all that. But you understand,

surely, Miss Sylvia—no man would marry Harriet Atkinson if he could get

you. You—you’re quite different, Miss Sylvia. You’re one of us!”

He made Sylvia furious by his matter-of-fact snobbery; and so she was

lovely to him. She told him that she, too, had been in love, but her

family was opposed to the man, and now she was very unhappy. She told

him that she was not worthy of the love of such a man as he. Poor

Beauregard tried his best to reassure her, and followed her about day

and night for ten days, and was a most dreadful nuisance.

Each day she would report to Harriet the stage of infatuation to which

he had come; until at last Harriet’s thirst for blood was satisfied.

Then, dressed all in snow-white muslin and lace, Sylvia took her devoted

suitor off to a seat in a distant grape-arbor, and there administered

the dose she had prepared for him. “Mr. Dabney,” she said, “this joke

has got to be such a bore that I can’t stand it.”

“What joke?” asked Beauregard, innocently.

“You know that I have called myself a friend of Harriet Atkinson’s. When

you came to me and told me that you loved her, but wanted to marry me

because my family was better than hers—did it never occur to you how it

would strike her friend? Evidently not. Well, let me tell you then—I

could think that it was the stupidest joke I had ever heard, or else

that you were the most arrogant jack that ever walked on two legs. I

said that I would punish you—and I’ve been doing it. You must understand

that I never felt the least particle of interest in you; I never met a

man who’d be less apt to attract me, and I can’t see how you managed to

interest Harriet. I assure you you’ve no reason for holding the

extravagant opinion of yourself which you do.”

The poor youth sat staring at her, unable to believe his ears. And so,

of course, Sylvia began to feel sorry for him. “I can see,” she said,

“that there might be something in you to like—if only you had the

courage to be yourself. But you’re so terrorized by your aunts and

uncles, you’ve let them make you into such a dreadful snob——”

She paused. “You really think I am a snob?” he cried.

“The worst I ever met. I couldn’t bring myself to discuss it with you.

Let me give you this one piece of advice, though; if you think you’re

too good to marry a girl, pray find it out before you tell her that you

love her. Of course, I’m not sorry that it happened this time, for you

won’t break Harriet’s heart, and she’s a thousand times too good for

you. So I’m not sorry that you’ve lost her.”

“You—you think that I’ve lost her, Miss Sylvia?” gasped the other.

“Lost her?” echoed Sylvia. “Why, you don’t mean—” But then she stopped.

She must not make it impossible for him to think of Harriet again.

“You’ve lost her, unless she’s a great deal more generous than I’d ever

be.”

Beauregard took his drubbing very well. He persuaded Sylvia to discuss

his snobbery with him, and confessed the offence, and got up quite a

fire of indignation against his banded relatives. Also he admitted that

Harriet was too good for him, and that he had treated her like a cad.

His speeches grew shorter and his manner more anxious, and Sylvia could

see that his main thought was to get back and find out if he’d really

lost Harriet.

So she called her friend up on the ’phone and announced, “He’s coming.

Get on your prettiest dress without delay!” And then Sylvia went away

and had a cry—first, because she had said such cruel things, and second,

because her mother and father would be unhappy when they learned that

Beauregard had escaped her.

An hour later Harriet called up to say that it was all over. “Did you

accept him?” asked Sylvia.

To which the other answered, “You may trust me now, Sunny! You have made

him into a soft dough, and I’ll knead him.” And sure enough, the new

Beauregard Dabney sent his aunts and uncles flying, and followed Harriet

to her summer home on the Gulf, and was hardly to be induced to wait for

a conventional wedding—so eager was he to prove to himself and to Sylvia

Castleman that he was really not a coward and a snob!

§ 31

It was in the midst of these adventures that Frank Shirley made his

unexpected return from the North. On the day when he came to see her

first, she naturally forgot about the existence of Beauregard

Dabney—until Beauregard suddenly appeared and flew into a fit of

jealousy. Then the imp of mischievousness got hold of Sylvia; she found

herself wondering, “Would it be possible for Frank to be jealous of

Beauregard? And if he was, how would he behave?”

“I knew it was dreadful then,” she told me, “but I couldn’t have helped

it if I’d been risking my life. I had to see what Frank would do when he

was jealous. I simply _had_ to! It was a kind of insanity!”

So she tried it, and did not get much fun out of the experience. Frank

was like an Indian in captivity; he could not be made to cry out under

torture. He saw Beauregard’s position, and the unconcealed delight of

the family; but he set his lips together and never gave a sign. Sylvia

was going away for the summer, and Beauregard was talking about

following her. There would be other suitors following her, no doubt—and

new ones on the ground. Frank went home, and Sylvia did not hear from

him for several days.

The Beauregard episode came to its appointed end, and then, in a letter

to Frank, Sylvia mentioned that she had accomplished her purpose—the

youth was engaged to Harriet. She thought this was explaining things.

But how could Frank imagine the complications of the art of

man-catching? Was Sylvia jesting with him, or trying to blind him, or

apologizing to him, or what?

Sylvia kept putting off her start to the mountains—she could not bear to

go while things were in such a state between them. But, while she was

still hesitating, to her consternation she received a note from him

saying that he was starting for Colorado. He had received a telegram

that an aunt was dead; there were business matters to be attended

to—some property which for his sisters’ sake could not be neglected. It

was a cold, business-like note, with not a word of sorrow at parting;

and Sylvia shed tears over it. Such is the irrationality of those in

love, she had forgotten all about young Dabney or any other cause for

doubt and unhappiness she might have given Frank. She thought that he,

and he alone, had been unkind. And meantime, Frank had made up his mind

that she was repenting of her engagement, and that it was his duty to

make it easy for her to withdraw.

So the two spent an unhappy summer. Sylvia let herself be taken about to

parties, but she grew more weary every hour of the social game. “I’ve

smiled until I’ve got the lockjaw,” she would say. She was losing weight

and growing pale, in spite of the mountain air.

September came, and Harriet’s wedding was set for the next month, and

likewise Frank’s return to Harvard. He came back from the West, and

Sylvia wrote asking him to come and visit her for a week. But to her

consternation there came in reply a polite refusal from Frank. There was

so much that needed his attention on the plantation, and some studying

that must be done if he was to make good. For three days Sylvia

struggled with herself, the last stand of that barbarian pride of hers;

then she gave way completely and sent him a telegram: “Please come at

once.”

She would have recalled it an hour afterwards, but it was too late; and

that evening she received an answer, to the effect that he would arrive

in the morning. She spent a sleepless night imagining his coming, and a

score of different ways in which she would meet him. She would throw

herself at his feet and beg him not to torture her; she would array

herself in her newest gown and fascinate him in the good old way; she

would climb once more upon the pinnacle of her pride and compel him to

humble himself before her.

In the morning she drove to meet him, together with a cousin who had

come on the same train. She never stood a worse social ordeal than that

drive and the luncheon with the family. But at last they were alone

together, and sat gazing at each other with eyes full of bewilderment

and pain.

“Sylvia,” said Frank, finally, “you do not look happy.”

“Why should I be happy?” she asked.

There was a pause. “Listen,” he said. “Can we not deal honestly with

each other—openly and sincerely, for once. Surely that is the best way,

Sylvia—no matter how much it hurts.”

“I am ready to do it,” she replied.

“You don’t have to spare my feelings,” he went on. “I know all you have

to contend with, and I sha’n’t blame you. The one thing I can’t bear is

to be played with, to be lured by false hopes, to drag on and on,

tormented by uncertainty.”

She was gazing at him, bewildered. “Why do you say all that, Frank?” she

cried.

“Why should I not say it?” he asked; and again they stared at each

other.

Suddenly she broke out, in a voice full of anguish, “Frank, this is what

I want to know—answer me this! Do you love me?”

“Do I love you?” he echoed.

“Yes,”—and with greater intensity, “I want you to be honest about it!”

“Honey!” he said, his voice trembling, “it’s the question of whether I’m

allowed to love you. It’s so terrible to me—I can’t stand the

uncertainty.”

She cried again, “But do you _want_ to love me?”

She heard his voice break, she saw the emotion that was shaking him, and

with a sudden sob she was in his arms. “Oh, Frank, Frank!” she

exclaimed. “What _have_ we been doing to each other?”

And so at last the fog of misunderstanding was lifted. “Sweetheart,” he

exclaimed, “what could you have been thinking?”

“I thought you had stopped loving me because I had been too bold,

because I had been unwomanly.”

“Why, Sylvia, you must be mad! Have I not been hungry for your love?”

“Oh, tell me that I can love you!” she wailed. “Tell me that you won’t

grow tired of me if I love you!”

He clasped her in his arms and covered her lips with kisses; he soothed

her like a frightened child. She was free now to sob out her grief, to

tell him what she had felt throughout all these months of misery. “Oh,

why didn’t you come to me like this before?” she asked.

“But, Sylvia,” he answered, “how could I know? I saw you letting another

man make love to you——”

“But, Frank, that was only a joke!”

“But how could I know that?”

“How could you imagine anything else? That I could prefer Beauregard

Dabney to you!”

“That’s easy to say,” he replied. “But there was your family—I knew what

they’d prefer, and I saw how they were struggling to keep us apart. And

what was I to think—why should you be giving him your time, unless you

wanted to let me know——”

“Ah, don’t say that! Don’t say that!” she cried, quickly. “It’s wicked

that such a thing should have happened.”

“We must learn to talk things out frankly,” he said. “For one thing you

must not let your family come between us again. You must free me from

this dreadful fear that they are going to take you from me.”

And suddenly Sylvia blazed up. All the misunderstanding had come from

the opposition of her family, and her unwillingness to talk to Frank

about it. “I never saw it so clearly before,” she exclaimed. “Frank, I

can never make them see things my way. And they’ll always have this

dreadful power over me—because I love them so!”

“What can you do then?” he asked.

“I’m going to betray them to you!” she cried. And as he looked puzzled,

she went on, “I’m going to tell you about them! I’m going to tell you

everything they’ve said and done, and everything they may say and do in

the future!”

“And that,” said Frank to me, “was the most loving thing she ever said!”

Such was the power, in Sylvia’s world, of the ideal of the Family!